


I NEIGHBORHOOD 
ee HOUSES 


| Bye 
CHRISTINE T. WILSON 








i ee “BOARD OF NATIONAL MISSIONS 
pepe QF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U. S. A. 
156 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 


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| OCT 28 1995 

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TWATR YT yy, LO pein sewrk’ 
NEIGHBORHOOD 


HOUSES 


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A SURVEY of 
THIRTY PRESBYTERIAN NEIGHBORHOOD 
HOUSES 


eMade Dei 
CHRISTINE T. WILSON 


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Department of City, Immigrant, and Industrial Work 
BOARD OF NATIONAL MISSIONS 
OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U. S. A. 
.. 156 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 


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FOREWORD 


HE Neighborhood House is an answer of the Church to 

the deep human need of our foreign and polyglot communi- 

ties. Where as many as a dozen different nationalities live 
together in one neighborhood, it is clear that any effort to minister 
to so many groups through a foreign-language church would be 
attended by great difficulty. Aside from this matter of language, 
most of these recent immigrants maintain at least a nominal loyal- 
ty to Old World faiths, Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, and 
Orthodox, with their familiar, picturesque, and vivid services. 
Our American Protestantism is not at the outset greatly interest- 
ing nor acceptable to such immigrants. It is as foreign to them 
as their Old World religions would be to us. Meanwhile the 
streets of our cities and industrial towns swarm with children, 
boys hang around the corner waiting for something to turn up, 
and in the home of the workers each new day brings some new 
problem. To help these thousands of foreign-speaking people 
and their children make their adjustment to America is a first 
concern of the Neighborhood House, and to help them realize 
here a religion which has to do with every department of life. 


In the last ten years the Neighborhood House as a form of 
Christian service has made steady gains in the interest of the Pres- 
byterian and other denominations. There are more than thirty 
Neighborhood Houses under the auspices of the Presbyterian 
Church. The first effort made to list these Houses was in a Direc- 
tory published by the Board of National Missions, January, 1925. 
It furnished a brief statement concerning the date of their found- 
ing, the auspices under which they are conducted, the investment 
in their properties, the number of workers engaged, and the an- 
nual expenditure for their maintenance. For the purposes of 
classification and inclusion in this Directory, a Neighborhood 
House was distinguished from a church, as a form of Christian 
service carried on in a building or group of buildings especially 
erected or adapted for neighborhood service, with a staff of work- 
ers, some of whom reside on a settlement basis in the House or 


aca 


neighborhood, and with a program of activities developed in 
response to neighborhood needs and not limited to any particular 
church constituency. A Committee of Management or Board of 
Directors responsible for oversight and conduct of the work was 
also specified. 


The Neighborhood House work has not been projected from 
any one headquarters. It has taken hold variously. It has gained 
inspiration and much of its technique from the Social Settlement. 
In some cases local Presbyterian churches have initiated and sup- 
ported the work. The City Church Extension Boards have seized 
upon the Neighborhood House as one of the most effective ap- 
proaches to our foreign communities. The Synod of Indiana has 
‘nterested itself in the Gary Neighborhood House and the Hill 
Crest Community Center at Clinton. The Synod of Michigan 
is sponsor for the Community House at Caspian in an iron-min- 
ing town. A number of projects have been initiated by the 
Women’s Presbyterial Societies, and Women’s Synodical Societies 
have collaborated. The Board of National Missions has assumed 
responsibility for a number of Houses where a demonstration of 
this method of approach was sought, and has cooperated with 
various Synods and Presbyteries. 


Under the leadership of Dr. Robert N. McLean, Associate 
Director of City, Immigrant, and Industrial Work, a number of 
Homes of Neighborly Service with a resident woman worker 
have been established in Mexican communities in the southwest. 
These Homes have the spirit and genius of the more largely de- 
veloped Neighborhood House. 


There has been no matured nor generally accepted policy for 
Neighborhood House work in such matters as the organization 
and responsibility of the Board of Management, qualifications 
and responsibilities of staff workers, club work, relation to other 
community agencies, or even the religious program. Perhaps this 
very freedom of initiative has been one of the movement’s great- 
est assets. The Neighborhood House would appear to be a fresh 
and unconventional approach to very real human, social, and reli- 
gious need. Now that the movement has carried on for fifteen 
years or more, however, it is in order carefully to gather up the 
experience gained. The Department of City, Immigrant, and 
Industrial Work of the Board of National Missions, accordingly, 
undertook a survey and inventory of Neighborhood Houses under 


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Presbyterian auspices. Miss Christine T. Wilson, Assistant 
Director, made the survey with the cooperation of the Directors 
of the Neighborhood Houses and the Executives of the Pres- 
byteries concerned. In June, 1925, the Department held a con- 
ference on the Neighborhood House at Harkness Camp, Cleve- 
land, attended by a hundred men and women, staff workers and 
executives, when the results of this study were submitted and 
when there was an interchange of experience and consideration 
of the whole Neighborhood House program. 


A number of papers presented at this Conference have been 
issued in a pamphlet, “Proceedings of the Conference of Neigh- 
borhood House Work,” which may be had from the Board of 
National Missions. 


WILLIAM P. SHRIVER, 


New York City ‘ Department of City, Immigrant 
Mayen, 125 and Industrial Work. 


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INTRODUCTION 


E died learning” is the epitaph carved on the tomb of the 

English historian Greene. “He died learning” could 

appropriately be inscribed on the tombstone of anyone attempt- 
ing a survey of Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses. 


Not only a constantly changing program and staff, but even 
a change in the list of Neighborhood Houses themselves places 
any survey out of date before it is completed. Last autumn’s 
Directory of Neighborhood Houses includes two pieces of work 
already discontinued, Calumet City, and Boyle Center of St. 
Louis. Chicago Heights Community Center and Onward in 
Chicago should be added, and Brick Church Neighborhood 
House, now really a Parish House offering a lunch club for 
business women, does not belong in the Directory. “Labor turn- 
over” figures in a subsequent section show that an up-to-date 
statement about any staff is out of the question. As for the 
methods of administration, equipment and group activities, all 
are in a continual and unceasing process of development. Sev- 
eral House Councils were about to breathe their last gasp, others 
were facing their new responsibilities with the enthusiasm of 
youth. Two directors, visited toward the end of October, ex- 
claimed, “Oh, we wish you had come a month later when we 
really have our program going.” The Clubs and stated groups 
themselves are ever changing in purpose, membership and size to 
meet the immediate demands of the surrounding neighbors. 


Thus, I believe that if I returned again next winter, a very 
different situation would present itself in many centers. And so 
one might keep on studying about these same Neighborhood 
Houses indefinitely, and it might truly be said “he died learning.” 


A second consideration that should be firmly borne in mind by 
the reader, is that the most worthwhile and precious things of 
life are intangible—immeasurable. This holds true in the Neigh- 
borhood House. No method of evaluating the spiritual influ- 
ence of a Neighborhood House in a given community or a given 
life has yet been evolved. Yet, herein is the fundamental func- 
tion and chief aim of every center. Of necessity this report has 
been purposely kept to the tangible, the concrete, the “mechan- 
ics” of the Neighborhood House task. It is a handbook of the 
grouped experience of thirty centers. 


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TABLE OF CONTENTS 


Ore ward egiian an hier mara hay Teuleve Rae PRS PRC) BRON A A ia 
PDALOMUCUON Leen taki jena um treet Mie ee renr Ln ieee 
Rioree COLE HANGS VICLIOC mile nek Milas aE vale ob nm ane 
Surcoundingy Neishhorhoods sii: alte OAs Wa En as Ata 
TART Ven COUNTS he ie aye th Velichele mp icipae cts aN a ne A OULD an at EO 
Underiving a mlosophies vans 2, ail nc Gee ide fo ek he TD ce 
ATAITHRIO LIEU Uris Seyret et CRE MMC cao ee hil eae et nei th aL TEN mba 
PLGUINIs AOU IanO AIP oanizanon esos) Wace nn i Lae 
PAL Ges ture Cay ae aaa WEN ECAC Mitta 2,00) SNe ew A 
ECOrds ands REpOrtsyA tie sont Neem Cine ohh ta Oe AY ER 
LAAT LES EVENT g G8 2h REAR ala i US ck ag UR Ph a a a Se a 
POU NAGUCR MLM y Ure na ony WAN th a uth SoA PN oh EN 
ATS RE COI? EAU URE ALL. dS Ry MERE PRR ASETL TR Ge Ost EO A RL ttt Di 
SHARE en RIAD RR eR Cone Uy TIT A EIRRE an ADIN AW EG RAL Un NAIR, ASCE 


APPENDIX 


SUGGESTED REcorpD Forms 
BAS ECHL er tua ae I Mm SEN SCAN RNG dhe Vai aL nk ARN 
CMDS ACTS RC DOTTS in Mal puma non nner n rk Nuk ony ene 
LEE VU INR CA Tes Nee aa co CUS ANN PRA, ee Wear 
A Minimum STANDARD FoR A NEIGHBORHOOD HousE ......... 
FLoor PLans oF DopGE Communtry HousE ................ 


DIRECTORY OF) NEIGHBORHOOD. Houses.) ee ee 


Lys 


CHARTS 


PAGE 
1. THe Prepominant PoPuLATION IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD 
COMMUNITY 3. cciy ea En er gee arnt tine’ Lon. ata aaa 15 
) ) SRORRIGN-SPEAKING GROUPS) Hoa Wh tchey tes + He ws aeet ape 16 
3. Tur PrepomInant RExicious FaIrH IN THE NEIGHBOR- 
STOOD | COMM UN TTY iis ee a a arate ape areal nis Noten ae 18 
A’ “Grow | oF NEIGHBORHOOD Houses ©...) 00) s/s} see 22 
5. ADMINISTRATION AND ORGANIZATION ........-+-20¢005 30 
6. REPRESENTATION ON Boarps OF DIRECTORS ............ yee 
Pi. SOURCKHS OF SUBROR Tar. te ees RC eae is near hats Ia 40 
Sh) AoTriVvrries-— DY PES AND Ul REQUENCY 155.000) oleh geen am 52 
OM NATIONAL: ORGANIZATIONS”. : ywletsiens Weis ste en nC rage a 54 
10. 990 SraTrep AcTiviITIEs BY AGE GROUPS ............ Fk sO 
11. Types or 82 Futt-Timme StaFF Workers’ Positions .... 76 
12. AcE Groups 83 FuLL-TImME STAFF WORKERS .........-. 78 
13. Previous PRoFEssSIONAL ExPERIENCE OF FuLL-TIME STAFF 
WORKERS a OR eis Aa OD Sra eae Ete ee 82 
14. Epucation oF 92 FuLL-TIME STAFF WORKERS ......... 84 
15. Prrtiop oF SERVICE oF 92 FuLt-TimeE StaFF WorKERs—A 86 
16. PrERriop oF SERVICE OF 92 FuLt-Time STAFF WorKERS—B_ 88 
TABLES 
I. Ten NercGHBoRHOOop HousE ExPENSE ACCOUNTS ....... 36 
TEP GROUP ACTIVITIES ial eae ee ae ee ae ea 51 
III. Previous ExPERIENCE oF 80 STaFF MEMBERs IN RELIG- 
TOUS WiGRe ie oc) coe ea alin lat ay URNS tg aha ee 13 
IV. Previous ExPERIENCE OF 83 STaFF MEMBERS IN SOCIAL 
WW ORR eect Pca GAO Pc ae cote yen 80 
V. Previous ExPERIENCE OF 79 StarF MEMBERS IN OTHER 
Work ie sos AY Bh IA SR SAR eee rk a na 80 
VI. Worxinc Hours oF 88 FuLL-TIME WoRKERS ......... 87 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
Dodge -Commiunitywhlouse warw ioes oe acer ene Frontispiece 
Howell ‘Neighborhood: House erie PU i Panga fom Pn ett ae ef: 
Hilicrest Community Center) saa nicie geen me avan cine n preae 27 


PURPOSE, SCOPE, AND METHOD 


"THE study of Neighborhood Houses was not undertaken to 

determine the efficiency or effectiveness of centers, or to 
measure one center against another, but to provide trustees, staff 
and executives in social-religious fields with facts and generaliza- 
tions drawn from the experience of Neighborhood Houses. Dur- 
ing the last quarter of a century Neighborhood Houses have de- 
veloped with little or no relationship to one another, in different 
parts of the country, in a variety of communities, under the 
direction of diversified leadership. The Department of City, 
Immigrant and Industrial Work receives frequent inquiries about 
vocational training. Requests for advice on the development, 
organization, program, support and administration of Neighbor- 
hood Houses are common. College students and the religious 
education departments of the universities want to know, “What 
training is necessary for church social service?” A distraught 
member of a committee on management recently inquired, ‘What 
shall we do? We had two thousand dollars on hand, and started 
a community work. Now we have used up all our money, and 
the year is but half over! Where should we look for support?” 
“Fiow far can a successful administration of a Neighborhood 
House be democratic?” comes from a director. From the casual 
supporter one hears, “Wouldn’t it be better to spend my money 
to start a church?” Ina little isolated mining “location” a girls’ 
worker inquires, “What are girls’ clubs doing in Chicago and 
Detroit??? Why do we need Neighborhood Houses? Is their 
function an end in itself? Are they peculiarly related to com- 
munity needs? Do they offer a form of service distinct from the 
social settlement and the institutional church? With the hope of 
correlating experience for answering these and similar questions 
and gathering a body of knowledge that would furnish a basis for 
setting up standards and methods for future attainments, a sur- 
vey of Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses was undertaken. 


The questionnaire used is the outgrowth of an attempt to 
draw up a standard of measurement for a Neighborhood House 


ibe] 


made at the meeting of the Chicago directors, April, 1924. After 
prolonged discussion, the group decided that we must “take ac- 
count of stock” first, and that we must know more generally the 
program of Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses throughout the 
country before setting up evaluation standards. Therefore, a 
committee was appointed to draw up a questionnaire. This ques- 
tionnaire was then submitted to national and local executives for 
suggestions and amplifications. When finally completed it repre- 
sented a composite authorship of those engaged in Neighborhood 
House work from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. 


To define the limits of the survey the following description 
of a Neighborhood House was adopted: “A form of Christian 
service carried on in a building or group of buildings especially 
erected or adapted for neighborhood service, with a staff of 
workers, some of whom reside on a settlement basis in the House 
or neighborhood, and with a program of activities developed in 
response to neighborhood needs and not limited to any particular 
church constituency. The Neighborhood House provides for a 
Committee of Management or Board of Directors responsible 
for oversight and conduct of the work.” On this basis thirty 
were selected for analysis. They were: 


Buffalo— Erie, Pennsylvania— 
Welcome Hall Social Settle- Neighborhood House 
ment Gary, Indiana— 


Westminster House 
* Memorial Chapel Social 
Center 
Calumet City, Ilinois— 
Calumet City Neighborhood 
Center 
Caspian, Michigan— 
Caspian Community House 
Chicago Heights— 
Chicago Heights Community 
Center 
Detroit— 
Delray Presbyterian Institute 
and Neighborhood House 
Dodge Community House 
Dupont, Pennsylvania— 
Dupont Neighborhood House 


Gary Neighborhood House 
Lackawanna, New York— 
The Lackawanna Friendship 
House 
Milwaukee, Wisconsin— 
Calvary Community House 
Chicago— 
Christopher House Settlement 
Garibaldi Institute 
Howell Neighborhood House 
Laird Community House 
Olivet Institute 
Samaritan House 
*Peniel Community Center 
Cleveland— 
Woodland Center Settlement 


*Qualifies in all particulars except that workers do not live in residence. 


[ 12 ] 


Clinton, Indiana— Sea and Land House 
Hill Crest Community Center Spring Street Neighborhood 
New York City— House 
Central Presbyterian Church 
Neighborhood House 
Jan Hus Neighborhood House 
Labor ‘Temple 
Neighborhood House of Amer- Summit, New Jersey— 
ican Parish Neighborhood House 


San Francisco, California— 
Potrero Hill Neighborhood 


House 


The method of survey was practically the same for each 
center. Potrero Hill was the only house not visited personally. 
Clubs and classes, Sunday schools, special events, staff and boards 
of directors’ meetings were observed, wherever possible. The 
main body of the questionnaire was filled out in conference with 
the director, and, in the larger houses, with heads of departments. 
In addition, individual conferences were held with staff members. 
Residence at thirteen houses and extended day and evening visits 
at others permitted an intimate glimpse into a Center’s underlying 
philosophy. | 

Directors, workers and Board members allowed the surveyor 
to go in and out of group activities at will, to peer into records, 
explore the recesses of garrets and cellars, as well as club rooms 
and gymnasium, and painstakingly answered endless questions 
and thus made possible any help that this summary may bring 
their fellow workers. 

Generalizations, statistics, and facts included in this report 
refer only to the thirty Neighborhood Houses listed. The term 
“Neighborhood House” is used throughout the report to desig- 
nate the centers under Presbyterian auspices, and does not include 


non-sectarian social settlements also frequently called Neighbor- 
hood Houses. 


SURROUNDING NEIGHBORHOODS 


THE communities surrounding the centers partially explain the 
whole neighborhood house movement and have implications 
for its future. Twenty-eight out of thirty houses are in cities 


[ 13 J 


having populations of over 10,000. All are in the midst of 
polyglot communities. Jan Hus House, New York City, is the 
only one which definitely serves a single nationality to the ex- 
clusion of all others. Many houses, however, serve large numbers 
of a single national group—Howell Neighborhood House serves 
Czechs very largely; Christopher House reaches a large number 
of Poles; Delray Presbyterian Institute in Detroit’s Armenian 
and Hungarian district specializes in one or two nationalities. The 
Italian immigrant and his children are the first concern of a large 
number of centers. Polish and Jewish groups receive second and 
third place respectively. The predominant foreign populations in 
the Neighborhood. House communities are shown in Chart 1. 
The negro migration northward has brought increasing numbers 
of colored people to such districts. The Community House at 
Caspian, a small mining town with a population of 2,000 on the 
Michigan Iron Range, listed thirty-nine different nationalities 
actually enrolled in its activities. The variety and frequence of 
nationality groups clustered about the Neighborhood Houses are 
shown in Chart 2. 


All but four houses reported a changing community, and but 
four of the remaining twenty-six reported changes within the 
same nationality grouping only, i. e., Italians replacing other 
Italians. The trend is for the earlier immigrant group of Ger- 
man, Scotch, English and Irish extraction to be crowded out by 
Italian or Slav, and they in turn are giving way to the negro 
in some districts. A constant and ever shifting stream of different 
nationalities surround the Neighborhood Houses. In Calumet 
City an American group is replacing a'Polish group, and the 
city blocks around Spring Street Neighborhood House in New 
York City are being reclaimed by “uptowners.” In only seven 
out of twenty-nine neighborhoods were the majority of residents 
believed to own their own homes. 


Religious faiths represented in these communities are clearly 
shown in Chart 3. Roman Catholics predominate, with Jew- 
ish, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox groups following in im- 
portance. Also, one may find small gatherings or established or- 
ganizations of Nazarenes, Russelites, Pentecostal Brethren, the 
Polish National Church, Mohammedans, Lutherans, and Holy 
Jumpers. 


De 


CuHarT 1 


e The e 
Predominant Population 


im the 


Neighborhood Community 


Thirty Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses 


tation 9 
Polish 5 az 
Jewish 3 a 
Gecho Slovak 2 Sam 
Hungarian 2 Ra 
German 2 
Russian 2 
American 2 a 
» Colored 2 
Jugo-Slav 1 


This chart indicates the nationality groups predominating in the Neighbor- 
hood House district—that is, nine centers have more Italians than any 
other one nationality. Five centers have more Poles in their community 
than any other one nationality, etc. 





[ 157] 


Cuart 2 


Foreign-Speakin¢g 
Groups 


in 
Thirty Presbyterian Neighborhood House Communities 
PN ey | 
Oc OE ee 
Vis, aa 
3 Gino: Eis 
0 Sos 
have 
9 Hungarians Cre | 
Russians 
Russians 
1 Sardinian; as 


cexs And 21 Other 
6 Tithuanian s lille Nationalities 


tore eople iam 
, Cotored Feople 


The bars indicate the number of Neighborhood Houses having the given 
nationality living in their immediate districts. For example, some Italians 
live in the immediate neighborhoods of twenty-three Neighborhood Houses. 





[ 16 ] 


In addition to religious faiths, the type of industry prevalent 
in these communities was noted. If time had permitted, it would 
have been enlightening to analyze the types of industry in vari- 
ous neighborhoods to see what opportunities for employment 
were open by age and sex, and to study these opportunities or 
lack of opportunities in their relationship to the development of 
a normal community life. Only the briefest summary of the 
outstanding industries of a neighborhood were tabulated. Three 
Neighborhood Houses are in mining towns—Caspian, Michigan, 
where iron mining is the only industry; Hill Crest, Indiana; and 
Dupont, Pennsylvania, bituminous and anthracite coal centers 
respectively. Eleven houses reported heavy manufacturing, such 
as steel mills; twenty-two reported small factories; eighteen, 
trade, that is, small stores; six, common Jabor—longshoremen’s 
and railroad-yard jobs and fisheries,—in their immediate vicinity. 
Only two reported much opportunity for clerical work close at 
hand. One in a changing section of New York City had pro- 
fessional people living nearby. This data shows that the Neigh- 
borhood House is operating largely among unskilled and semi- 
skilled workers, and must be concerned with the problems of in- 
dustry. It also means that Neighborhood House communities are 
far from static; that one cannot settle down complacently to serve 
any one nationality or religious faith; that any Neighborhood 
House program must be elastic, constantly being subjected to 
close scrutiny and always based on a continuous analysis of com- 
munity needs. 

No careful study of the relationships of the Neighborhood 
Houses to their surrounding communities was attempted. To 
what extent the Neighborhood House was allowing its own pro- 
gram to be determined by the needs of the locality could only 
be discovered after a minute analysis of the district. Time did 
not permit this. Furthermore, the extent to which a Center 1s 
effective in a given district is one of the intangible values, we 
have as yet determined no rule for measuring. The extent, to 
which a Neighborhood House fosters or cooperates with desirable 
social and religious organizations, may be one test of its efficacy. 
At Columbia University participation tests for the individual are 
being developed. These will enable one to discover to what 
extent a boy or girl is participating in his family life, in his day 
school, in the moving picture house, in the Sunday school. The 
degree to which a Center participates in the community life is 
surely one of the tests of Neighborhood House success. 


[ 17 ] 


CHART 3 


The Predominant 
Religious Faith 


[n the Neighborhood Community 


Thirty Presbyterian N eiphborhood Houses 


fomnctnsic 22 is 


Jewish 3 ae 
Protestant 2 eS 
Eastern Orthodox 1 a 


Molokans {| El 


Socialist | 1 


The bar sent the an otk Ne ighbe rhood House communities ac- 
cording a ioe r predominating igio aith, 1.e., twenty-two are in 
communities pre A Toba * Catholic 





[ 18] 


EARLY BEGINNINGS 


HE Neighborhood House has been described as “‘a fresh and 

unconventional approach on the part of organized Christian- 
ity to a polyglot neighborhood, with a program adapted to neigh- 
borhood needs.” 

We have seen that the Houses are working in polyglot com- 
munities. The story of early beginnings will show that the neigh- 
borhood house is an outgrowth of neighborhood needs. It would 
seem that the Neighborhood House is a development of the last 
quarter of a century in response to a felt need for something 
more than the conventional religious and educational opportuni- 
ties offered in the average American community. 


NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE ORIGINS 


Origin No. of Houses 
Grew out of kindergartens. . 7 
Conventional churches Pe et atte or Mupolemented 6 
CSreWaOUt oralitiday, Schools ti) 0s yeti Piva inet eis Fay 
Grew out of Missions . vy HaDNeE Wee 
Started as Neighborhood Houses 3 
Miscellaneous Mi stints 6 
OT ATe un PNyipeuite Bae bas torrie O 


Of the six listed Miscellaneous, one nai as a Settlement; one 
_ asa Daily Vacation Bible School; one, with cottage prayer meet- 
ings; one, with labor meetings; one, with English classes for 
foreigners; and one, to provide public baths for laborers in the 
steel mills. Only three houses, Dodge, Garibaldi, and Dupont, 
all founded within the last five years and encouraged by the 
example of institutions already started, were founded as Neigh- 
borhood Houses. The rest grew out of small beginnings, trans- 
forming and increasing their service to meet the needs of the 
immediate locality. 
The stories of individual Neighborhood Houses are worth 
examining— 
Caspian, Michigan, a sordid iron mining town of approximately 


2,000 people, eagerly welcomed a Daily Vacation Bible School held 
Bates 


in a small store building, in the summer of 1917, under the direc- 
tion of one young college woman. ‘The vacation school was suc- 
ceeded by clubs and classes for boys and girls. A women’s group 
was started. In 1919 a second worker was added to the staff, and 
in 1921 the new building erected for Neighborhood House work 
was dedicated. ‘The program includes a circulating library and 
reading room, organized clubs and classes for children and adults 
of both sexes and all ages, Boy Scouts, Vacation School, Camp Fire 
Girls, gymnasium, baths, play-room, community gatherings, summer 
camp, and community organization. ‘The attendance of over eight 
thousand a month represents 39 nationalities and draws on many 
other mining locations in the Iron River District. ‘The house is 
an important factor in the recreational, social, political and educa- 
tional life of the community, and above all is a potent exemplifi- 
cation of the “Christian way of life.” 


The Labor Temple, New York City, had its beginnings in the 
ancient brown stone church at the corner of 14th Street and 
Second Avenue. The old church organization had long ago 
failed to reach a district, one of the most densely populated in 
the country, which was 98 per cent foreign, and notorious for 
saloons, gunmen, low grade movies, dance halls and radicalism. 

Charles Stelzle, inspired by “the dream of my machinist days 
. . . pictured a church working men would like to attend,” se- 
cured the use of the building for two years from the Church 
Extension Committee of New York Presbytery to demonstrate 
what the church might accomplish, if it were ready to adapt itself 
to changing city conditions. 


“The basic idea of the enterprise was the open forum. While 
such meetings were conducted nearly every night in the week, the 
service on Sunday night was thoroughly religious and thoroughly 
orthodox. Perhaps the order of service was a bit more vital and 
human than usual. Within a month we began to turn people away 
from the Sunday night services. Our average audience was 95 per 
cent men, 75 per cent of whom were Jews, and 50 per cent 
of whom were socialists, agnostics, and radicals. 

“It was distinctly my purpose not to organize a church. ‘The 
main thing was to indicate to the people that here was a religious 
enterprise, conducted by a denomination which was thoroughly ortho- 
dox, and which was trying to work with the people to solve their 
own immediate social and religious problems. Nightly there was 
a discussion of radicalism, but I soon discovered that no matter 
what the social problems that attracted the audience they were vitally 
interested in religious matters. 


[ 20 ] 


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The Second and Third 
Homes of Howell 
Neighborhood House 


The building on the left 
Was next used, and in 
1913 the Neighborhood 
house on the right was 
erected. 





Where Howell Neigh- 
borhood House 
Started: 


This old saloon was con- 
verted into a_ settlement 
and housed the first kinder- 
garten and clubs in 1905. 





Lhe Howell Neigh- 
borhood House in 


1925 


The wing on the rear 
right was added recently 
for boys’ clubs. 


“And so, one evening I frankly told the audience that if they 
desired it, we would devote one night a week to a discussion of pure- 
ly religious themes. The proposal was unanimously received. Every 
Friday night eminent religious speakers were invited to talk. “This 
led to the formation of the Labor Temple Fellowship. 

“Within two years it was demonstrated that men and women 
were intensely interested in discussing in open forum meetings the 
problems with which they are most vitally concerned; that working 
men, apparently out of sympathy with the church, will attend reli- 
gious services if humanly conducted; that if the church is willing 
to adapt itself to changing conditions and to apply modern methods, 
the men outside the church will respond; that after all religion is 
the basic appeal which the church of Jesus Christ must set up, even 
in its social work, and that social work as such can never take the 
place of the religious appeal.”’* 


Since the early days Labor Temple has branched out in many 
directions. The program now includes the American Interna- 
tional Church, organized clubs and classes for boys and girls, the 
Labor Temple School, a self-supporting enterprise of the move- 
ment for “worker’s education,” forum, playground, and a Daily 
Vacation Bible School. As this pamphlet goes to print, the work 
of Labor Temple is being transferred to the new building, erected 
on the old site at 14th Street and Second Avenue. 

“Tn 1905, Howell Neighborhood House, originally called Bo- 
hemian Settlement House, opened first as a kindergarten, supported 
by the Woman’s Presbyterial Society, in a small one story frame 
building previously occupied by a saloon. A sewing school for girls 
was soon added on Saturday mornings; cooking and raffia classes, 
game and story hours, Sunday school, a weekly mothers group and 
a circulating library were later started. 

“Next, clubs for boys and girls of working age, citizenship 
classes and other activities for men and women, lectures and con- 
certs were added. The children came in greater numbers every 
month. Within a few years the first building and then a second 
three-story building were outgrown. A new building erected and 
equipped especially for Neighborhood House activities was dedicated 
in 1913. 

‘“‘A new people, Croatians, commenced coming into the commu- 
nity, and their children did not feel at home in a building, whose 
very name, Bohemian Settlement, suggested a ministry exclusively 
for that nationality. So the name, Howell Neighborhood House, 
was adopted to commemorate the long and devoted leadership of 


*The Continent Oct. 25, 1923—page 1921, Beginning of Labor Temple. 


[eehny 


CuHart 4 


Growth of | 
Neighborhood Houses 


Presbyterian Church in U.S.A. 


Twenty-eight Neighborhood Houses 


Work begun 


1920-24 - 


1910-14 


LOISHD 


ca z 6 => 4 8 


The numbers of Neighborhood Houses arranged, according to year of 
founding, are grouped by five year periods. 





[ 22 ] 


Mr. Howell, for thirty-five years Superintendent of the Sunday 
school and Chairman of the Committee of Management. 

“Eventually a church organization was formed within its circle 
to answer the demand of some of the parents, but more largely of the 
young people, who had come up through the Sunday school and 
wanted further opportunity for their new found Christian faith. 

“Protestant churches in the district dwindled or moved as their 
constituencies departed to more exclusive sections, but the Howell 
Neighborhood House flourished. Here is an example of a successful 
approach by the church to an immigrant community. It has pro- 
duced Christian characters and lives such as the church is called on 
to develop. Yet it is not a church. It is the church, functioning 
in a new way, with a new emphasis, with a larger purpose, bringing 
to bear the Christian spirit upon a community endeavoring by every 
possible means to meet individual and community needs and trying 
to carry out the full program of Jesus.’’* 


The Neighborhood House Movement indicates an increasing 
number of Neighborhood Houses (Chart No. 4). The middle 
west especially has adopted this form of service. Of the eight 
houses opened in the last five year period, three were in Chicago 
Presbytery, two in Detroit, and one each in Cleveland, Ohio, 
Lackawanna, New York, and a small coal mining town in Penn- 
sylvania. 


UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHIES 


I! is not the function of this report to arrive at or prescribe a 

purpose and aim for all Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses. 
The very genius of the Neighborhood House requires that the 
needs of the local community determine the aim of a Neighbor- 
hood house. It is important, however, that every Neighborhood 
House should define its aim sufficiently clearly so that its staff and 
members can interpret the Neighborhood House ideals and phil- 
osophy to friends or questioners. 

A fluctuating policy is a danger. By this I do not mean that 
policies should remain static irrespective of changing conditions, 
but rather that the Neighborhood House should not stand first 


*Condensed from the Neighborhood House—Rev. W. Clyde Smith. 
[ 23 ] 


for one policy and then for another. The community should be 
made conscious of a steady, definite and continuing plan and pur- 
pose. It is harmful to the center to “keep the community guess- 
ing” by a frequent shift of emphasis. Honesty demands that the 
center take the community into its confidence; let it know why 
it is there; and what is its purpose. The Board of Directors, 
cooperating with the director, must assume the responsibility for 
maintaining a continued policy. The success of the strongest 
centers can be traced directly to the confidence which the neigh- 
borhood. places in them. The community and house supporters 
should know why the center exists. 

The name “Neighborhood House” is well chosen. Though 
exact data about residence of the Neighborhood House constitu- 
ency was not available for plotting, it is probable that the majority 
live within a radius of a quarter or a half of a mile of the center. 


Residence of Constituency Number of Centers 
Believed the majority of constituency lived within a 

radius of one-hal fi mile’, Wkaineeeieh (Meal sate ake. we 
Believed constituency came from all parts of the 

5 5 ARES LMM ANE Ie PNM LHe URL a) SEMEN CRAY airbag LA 
Insufficient data available for answer. . . . . 7 


Almost all the houses defined the district served within a 
small area of city blocks. Nearly all the children lived in the 
immediate vicinity; some adults came from a distance; young 
people or families who had prospered and established homes in 
the suburbs, like Cicero, the Bronx, and Long Island, still re- 
turned with surprising regularity. The question arises, whether 
or not there is another area of service to be developed in these 
suburbs. Many alumni come back to Neighborhood Houses ac- 
knowledging quite frankly that they do not feel at home in the 
suburban American churches. This may have implications for an 
extension and variation of Presbyterian work in these districts. 
How may the religious needs of these peoples be met? is a ques- 
tion still to be faced and answered by the suburban church. 

The thirty Neighborhood Houses vary in emphasis from the 
social settlement with little or no formal religious teaching, to 
the Center that is so closely bound up with, as to be almost indis- 
tinguishable from the institutional church. 

The following classification indicates, in general, the kind of 
programs followed: 


[ 24 ] 


Type of Emphasis Number of Centers 
NOcIa Weatlement ErOOTaMe sie) ya; ai) aly iat eae 
A Church is a definite part of the program. . . 12 
Social Settlement with religious services, i. e., Sun- 
day school, Daily Vacation Bible School, and Ser- 
VICES OLN EVV OTST AT sada beaut ail ot ew tac ame deh k 


Of the twelve which place considerable emphasis on the 
church program, two, Jan Hus House and Sea and Land House, 
are practically institutional churches with a limited service, such 
as kindergartens, foreign language schools, and women’s clubs 
for non-church and Sunday school members. The inclusion of 
these organizations in a list of Neighborhood Houses may be 
justly questioned. 

Purposes of the Neighborhood House were variously ex- 
pressed in constitutions and annual reports, and by directors. The 
term “Christian Americanization” was repeatedly found in state- 
ments of purpose. “To make Jesus Christ real to our people”; “to 
meet the physical, mental and religious needs of the community”; 
and to “be a neighbor” were other common ways of phrasing aims. 
Jan Hus House exists “to bring out and preserve what is best in 
the Czechoslovak people, particularly their art, music, historic and 
religious ideals for the betterment of the people themselves.” 


Howell Neighborhood House is an unconventional interpreta- 
tion of the Christian ideal and purpose, its program being freely 
developed in response to the needs of the neighborhood. It aims 
at a full rounded Christian ministry to all departments of life; 
to show forth the spirit of Jesus in acts of Christian friendship 
and neighborliness; to project a program that will meet the 
physical, mental, spiritual, and social needs of the Community; 
by living in the Community to become a part of it in such a way 
as to serve as an interpreter of Christian American ideals and 
to help conserve the best that our foreign-born bring to us. It 
includes provision in the neighborhood for a Christian Church 
when such a church grows out of a naturally felt need. 

Christopher Neighborhood House, Chicago, aims “to establish 
a home in the neighborhood which consciously and actively en- 
deavors to elevate the physical, mental, and moral quality of the 
individual and neighborhood life, by means of direct instruction, 
by direct personal contact with leaders who reveal these qualities 
in their lives, by cooperating with other existing agencies with 
similar purposes, and by organizing and permitting such activities 


[ 25 ] 


and functions as create a spiritual quality and value in all settle- 
ment activities, and extends that influence deeper and deeper into 
the individual and neighborhood life.” 

The emphasis is on the development of individual and com- 
munity Christian ideals, standards and character, rather than the 
development of ecclesiastical organizations. 

An institution offering group participation in Christian pro- 
jects, under the direction of Christian men and women, sym- 
pathetic friendship to its neighbor, a leadership ready to pio- 
neer for a better community, seemed to be the ambition of all 
centers. A Presbyterian Church was not the sole aim. Workers 
are measuring their success in terms of transformed neighbor- 
hoods and individuals, the development of individual social con- 
sciousness and action, and by the extent and continuation of com- 
munity participation in the Neighborhood House program. Only 
a few tested the success of their work in terms of church mem- 
bership. Formation of Christian habits of thought and action 
were first with all. 

The Neighborhood House is founded on what Walter H. 
Page calls “the fundamental article in the creed of American de- 
mocracy—the unchanging and unchanged resolve that every hu- 
man being shall have an opportunity for his utmost development 
—his chance to become and to do the best that he can.” 

In conclusion two quotations from papers on the philosophy 
of the Neighborhood House given at the Conference on Neigh- 
borhood House work will further clarify the aim and purpose. 
“The Neighborhood House exists to demonstrate the power and 
beauty of practical Christianity ... America and Christian 
America are very different . . . The Neighborhood House exists 
to interpret Christian America to the neighborhood and the neigh- 
bor to Christian America . . . Christian America will be caught 
rather than taught.”* 

And Dr. W. Clyde Smith writes, “The Neighborhood House 
goes into a neighborhood to be a part of it, conscious of a contri- 
bution to make, knowing that it will receive as well as give, re- 
joicing in the opportunity that is given to know the humanity of 
which it is a part. It says in effect to the community—‘Come, 
let us work and play and live together, give the best you have 
and we will give the best we have, that all of us may do a bit 
for the welfare of all.2. Thus through the common effort can 


*Laura H. Dixon. 


[ 26 ] 


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social wrongs be righted, light be brought into dark places, and 
the reality of democracy approached. 

“The Neighborhood House offers an opportunity for expres- 
sion of the finer and better things; it seeks to find the Christ as 
he lives and moves among men. It desires to know and discover 
the best that is in those among whom it lives, and to aid in giving 
expression to that best. 

“Tt believes thoroughly in the power of love as a redemptive 
force. It realizes that the most potent sermons are those that 
are lived rather than those that are preached; it endeavors to find 
and to exemplify the Jesus Way of Life, both for itself and for 
those with whom it comes into contact.””* 


EQUIPMENT 
PROGRESS in Neighborhood House work is revealed in the 


increasingly fine equipment provided. Properties used and 
in process of erection show an investment of over two million 
dollars. This year three new buildings specifically designed for 
Neighborhood Houses are being erected. Of the 30 Neighbor- 
hood Houses, 19 were erected specifically for the purpose, 7 were 
residences remodeled (sometimes with too little remodeling! ) 
_2 were apartment houses remodeled, 2 were churches remodeled. 
Only 18 buildings were well adapted for Neighborhood House 
use. The recent constructions are well planned, contain the essen- 
tials for conducting a community center and suggest the director’s 
careful supervision of the architect (the latter usually has had 
little experience in this type of designing). That there is still 
something to be desired in buildings is shown from the fact that 
28 houses checked as follows: 


Buildings inadequate for work needed. . . . . . . 12 
Burcings acequate for work Needed +26) at ee Ons 
Will transfer into new quarters within a year. . . . . 3 
a Gin Ssh ins OON LCOn GION | yh ay ae ee ODS 
PUMMbG Mastek CONGINOM ay ivi ke tah SO re ak eg 
DULIC eS MaDiENOOeICON GION) 13 1 )i cyl ietilarclaycueueeh Casts Minkeeln Oat 
DE OPATIONE SMMC aris Gli call Viexlabeondhas ny why Wigt Bie] Cae wcg'y Wann ter UO 


*Proceedings of Neighborhood House Conference, W. Clyde Smith: Aim and 
Purpose of the Neighborhood House. 


An] 


Responses to questions of amounts, appearance and condition 
of furnishings were similar. The valuable contribution of women’s 
auxiliaries, entrusted with the upkeep of interior furnishings was 
plainly visible. 

There is all too little beauty in our industrial districts. Un- 
fortunately economic necessity has kept down Neighborhood 
House expenditures for exterior architectural beauty. But 13 
houses out of 27 could honestly be checked “attractive in appear- 
ance.” The picture of Dodge House shows that the newer build- 
ings are being planned with thought for beauty. Every Neighbor- 
hood House should be a center of beauty amidst the sordidness 
of downtown immigrant quarters, and the deadly monotony of 
company-owned homes, or where 

The factory chimneys rear 

Their impudent heads, thick-browed; | 

Polluting the air with their foul, sooty breath, 

They shriek of the things of the world 

To the crowd. 
Outer structure and interior decoration must be planned, not only 
for durability and usefulness but for utilizing aesthetic values, 
simple lines and colors appealing to foreigners who have come out 
of a background of vivid gayness and brilliance. 

Also, a Neighborhood House should be a model of cleanli- 
ness, orderliness and sanitation, both in residents’ apartment and 
main building. Desperate efforts to stretch budgets to their ut- 
most too often postpone that much needed coat of paint from 
year to year. Repairs made at a low price by a “friend of the 
house” are often unsatisfactory, leave the building unsightly, and 
in the end cost more than if made by a reliable firm in the begin- 
ning. A decrepit janitor, hired to give employment to an old 
Neighborhood House retainer, cannot keep up with the ceaseless 
accumulation from muddy shoes and the wear and tear of rest- 
less throngs of children. 

The utilization of the Neighborhood House yard, though 
a small patch of land in the shadow of city buildings, may bring 
beauty into the community. A few shrubs, a little grass seed and 
fertile loam, a fence, if necessary, would transform a few square 
feet of barren ground or a cinder heap. Neighborhood Houses 
in less crowded cities would certainly rise in the estimation of the 
thrifty alien peasant whose garden is a mass of luxuriant growth 
if eal money and care were spent on the Neighborhood House 
yard, 


[ 28 | 


ADMINISTRATION AND ORGANIZATION 


HE Neighborhood House has no prescribed form of admin- 

istrative organization as has the Presbyterian church with its 
elders, trustees and deacons—all with stated duties, fixed terms 
of office, and methods of election. However, one or more ad- 
ministrative bodies were found functioning in almost every center. 

What were these bodies? What were their duties? What 
persons and committees actually function in the management and 
determination of policies? And is the control democratic? were 
questions the survey sought to reveal. 

All but two houses reported a Governing Board, Committee of 
Management, or a Board of Trustees. Nine had Women’s Aux- 
iliaries, 9 had House Councils, 15 held regular staff meetings (at 
least monthly, and usually weekly). Eight directors had regular 
individual conferences with their staff members. (Chart 5.) 

A few staff meetings visited were full of constructive sugges- 
tions and inspiration. Others failed to utilize fully this chance 
for group thinking, for unifying the purpose of the house, and 
for continued education of staff by bringing in outside speakers, 
book and conference reports. There is danger of wasting the 
entire hour with tiresome discussions of pageant dates, a basket 
ball schedule, assignment of trivial duties to individual workers 
and other “‘mechanics of the job,” and thus of crowding out the 
spiritual impetus or broad vision of the work. 

Eight directors out of 30 hold stated conferences with staff 
members. Where there are but two or three on the staff, regular 
appointments would be a farce. But among a large staff, such 
conferences coordinate a program, prevent individual workers 
from feeling that they are laboring alone, and are a real benefit 
to the director and the worker. Greater emphasis on such con- 
ferences, either with directors or heads of departments, will also 
help to interpret the Neighborhood House purpose and program 
to students and volunteers. 

Only 9 out of 30 Neighborhood Houses had any body of 
control which compared with a House Council or a local adminis- 


[ 29 ] 


CuHart 5 





Administration and 
Organization 


Thirty Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses 
Thirty Houses 


28 cg) 2 LS 8 





Board ides pa) g ular have statect 
ee Auxiliaries Councils stare es for 

; . individual 

Directors Meetings Contes 

with staff 


This chart shows the forms and numbers of administrative organizations 


functioning in Neighborhood Houses in relation to the total number.of 
Neighborhood Houses studied. 





[ 30 ] 


trative group. Councils were made up of representatives from 
each group, elected by the club or appointed by a club’s president. 
In all but two cases these represented senior (members over 16 
years of age) clubs. In one or two instances only the boys’ clubs 
were represented on the House Council. General supervision of 
house order, and responsibility for athletic and recreational sche- 
dules of the center were the principal duties of these bodies, 
though one council had power to cast the final verdict on protest 
decisions in athletics, and another was entrusted with admittance 
of new clubs to the center. Only three councils had direct or in- 
direct representation on the Boards of Trustees. Obviously, houses 
recently established have scarcely had time to develop House 
Councils, but should not the organization and training of such an 
administrative group be considered one of the chief functions of 
each new enterprise? A paper by Mr. E. T. Wilkes, “Democratic 
Control of the Neighborhood House,” in Report of Neighbor- 
hood House Conference, 1925, contains forward-looking and 
stimulating suggestions for such procedure, arrived at after con- 
ference with the staff and senior club members of a well estab- 


lished Neighborhood House. 


The women’s auxiliaries, made up of local church women, 
flourish, especially in Chicago. Their major duties are super- 
vising the upkeep of household equipment, raising money for 
special objects, kindergartens, Christmas fund, etc., and interest- 
ing others in the center. The Howell Neighborhood House Aux- 
iliary, large and firmly established, has an active membership of 
about forty-five meeting monthly at the house, and an associate, 
$1.00 a year, membership of over one hundred women from the 
churches of the Presbytery. The Auxiliary assumes responsibility 
for the upkeep of interior equipment, has an intimate knowledge 
of the affairs of the center, and is represented on the Board of 
Trustees. For twenty-five years the personal interest and loyalty 
of the members of the Auxiliary have been a very real source of 
inspiration and strength to the staff. 


Contrary to the similarity of duties of all auxiliaries, or of all 
House Councils, the responsibilities of Boards of Trustees varied 
considerably according to the personality of the Board and head- 
worker. Two Boards scarcely functioned, acting as little more 
than rubber stampers of directors’ proposals. Two were subject 
to the supervision of the session of the supporting church. How- 
ever, 20 Boards determined house policies; 15 were responsible 


be Fr 


CHART 6 


Representation 
on Boards of Directors 


Thirty Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses 


28% 


Other Sources 


Leis 
_ Presbyterian 
Agencies 


5 Zo On ly 
from Neighborhood House Constituency 


The black indicates the percentage of Board members who represent Presby- 
terian agencies outside the community. The white indicates the percent- 
age which represents other interests. Only five per cent of the total num- 
ber of Board members represented the Neighborhood House constituency. 





[ 32 ] 


for raising the budgets; 15 were responsible for administering 
the budgets; 23 Boards acted in an advisory capacity; 21 had 
members who represented agencies with financial interests in the 
Neighborhood House; only 8 Boards had members taking an 
active part in the Neighborhood House program. Though the 
primary administrative responsibility for a Center usually rests 
ultimately with the Board of Directors, often it is a director and 
his staff who actually determine the Neighborhood House policy. 
Wherever intimate knowledge of the community and specialized 
experience are required for a decision, the Board usually has to 
rely, toa great extent, upon the staff. 


The place and frequency of meeting of Boards of Directors 
were also studied. Twenty-three Boards convened at regular 
intervals and stated times; 18 met monthly except during the 
summer; others met bi-monthly, quarterly, three times a year, 
or twice a year; 14 found meeting at the Neighborhood House 
an effective way of keeping Board members in touch with the 
community and house activities. 

An analysis of the composition of the Boards to see in how 
far the control was democratic revealed a preponderance of repre- 
sentatives from local and regional Presbyterian organizations. 
(See Chart 6). Of 347 directors on 24 Boards, 248 (72 per 
cent) represented churches, local women’s societies or organ- 
ized national and regional Presbyterian agencies. Of the re- 
maining 99 (28 per cent), 50 (14 per cent) came from the com- 
munity at large (were members of a Manufacturers Association, 
prominent professional and business men, etc.); 19 (5 per cent) 
represented the Neighborhood House constituency, or local com- 
munity. Among the other 30 (9 per cent) were public school 
principals, employees in near-by factories, and members of a 
cooperating City Mission Society. Would it not be better to 
make a decided effort for local representation on our Boards, for 
example, representation from the House Council and prominent 
leaders in the district? At Memorial Chapel, the election of a 
colored minister to the Board of Directors has done much to in- 
terpret the needs of colored people to the Center and the purpose 
of the Center to colored congregations. At the Labor Temple 
the House Council and members of Trade Unions are included in 
the controlling board. 


The Council of Immigrant Education of New York City 
advises: 


[ 33 ] 


“Participation by the members of the community in the work of 
the Association, in the direction of its policy, in the development of 
its concrete programs seems to us an end in itself. It constitutes an 
activity and should be so considered rather than as a means for 
arriving at objectives and results whose desirability has been pre- 
determined by some outside group. 

“Tf achieved it strikes at the heart of the problem of ‘foreigners.’ 
For it is the inevitable tendency of racial groups in a new country 
to segregate, intensify and in-breed in their interests and organized 
activities, look upon themselves as apart from the community as a 
whole. ‘To secure their active assumption of responsibility for com- 
munity enterprise, their cooperation with other groups in the conduct 
of those enterprises not only affords a broader release for funda- 
mental instincts which will inevitably seek expression in some fashion, 
but is the only sound way to break down racial barriers, make them 
feel part of America, think and act in terms of America rather than 
in terms of their own specialized interest.” 

It was also discovered that Boards of Directors were chosen 
to a large degree to represent a supporting organization, usually 
Synod or Presbytery, rather than because of competence in Social- 
Religious work. Should we not also recommend that social 
workers employed in the same district, thoroughly acquainted 
with local resources and problems, equipped with technical ex- 
perience and training along similar lines of work, be added to 
these Boards? 

A comparison of the total number of men with the total num- 
ber of women serving on Boards of Directors showed a ratio of 
two men to one woman, and has little significance. Some Boards 
were made up almost entirely of men, others almost entirely of 
women. It is important that every Board should provide for the 
expression of both masculine and feminine viewpoints. 

The relationship of the centers to Presbytery and Synod 
showed that three were conducted under the immediate direction 
of Synod’s National Missions Committee and that 13 were ad- 
ministered by Presbytery’s Church Extension Committee. Six 
houses supported chiefly by a local church were related to Presby- 
tery as any phase of the local church work would be. In the 
others, Presbytery had a financial interest and its control was ef- 
fective in varying degrees, usually through representation on the 
Board of Trustees. 

Interdenominational cooperation was only found in one 
Center—Potrero Hill, San Francisco. Here the American Baptist 
Home Mission Society shares support and administration. 


yee 


FINANCES 


N O doubt analysis of synods’ and presbyteries’ budgets will 

show an increase in expenditures for Neighborhood House 
work in the last decade. Yet insufficient available data prevented 
comprehensive deductions about the increase of Neighborhood 
House expenditures over any considerable period of time. Dif- 
ferent fiscal years, no uniform classification of resources and ex- 
penditures in the individual centers or localities, made budget 
comparisons impractical. For general information ten typical 
expense accounts are printed on the following page. Expenses 
were included in different categories as follows: 


SALARIES: All salaries of workers full or part time. Salaries of 
janitors and cleaning women, are included under Maintenance. 

GENERAL OPERATING ExPENsEs: Expenses of all activities carried 
on in the Neighborhood House and supported by the Neighbor- 
hood House. 

MAINTENANCE: Repairs and upkeep of equipment, janitor’s salaries, 
taxes or rent, light, fuel etc. 

RELIEF AND COMMUNITY COOPERATION: Expenditures for relief 
in the district and a Center’s cooperation with other social and 
religious agencies. 

FURNISHINGS AND PERMANENT EQUIPMENT: Any _ permanent 
gymanasium equipment, kindergarten chairs, interior decorations 
etc. 

SPECIAL FuND FoR SUMMER Work: Summer camp or home. 

OTHER: Miscellaneous unless otherwise stated. 


The following summaries of the environment, equipment and 
activities of these Neighborhood Houses, will give some idea of 
the type and extent of work to be anticipated from a given budget. 


House A. Established 1905 in the foreign district of a large 
city, maintains a four story brick building designed for the pur- 
pose, and a staff of four full-time workers—directors, girls’ worker, 
case worker, secretary and part time workers. “The program includes 
an organized church and Sunday school, case work, a music depart- 
ment, classes or clubs for every age, a Daily Vacation Bible School, 


[ 35 ] 


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[ 36 ] 


and summer outings at Presbytery’s camp. A total attendance of 
1200 per month is recorded in winter activities. 

House B. Established 1920 in a large city’s “Little Italy.” 
The building is a private home, remodeled with gymnasium 
in the rear. ‘The visitor is the only full time worker. The director, 
girls’ worker, kindergarten, office secretary, boys’ worker and gym- 
nasium director are all employed on part time basis. The Italian 
pastor also has responsibilities elsewhere. The program includes an 
organized Italian church, a Sunday school, clubs or classes for all 
ages, home visitation, Daily Vacation Bible School, and summer out- 
ings at camps. It will be noted that the maintenance expense for 
this inadequate, dilapidated building is almost equivalent to “A” 
where the building is suited to Neighborhood House work. 

House C. Established 1922 on the edge of a manufacturing 
district of a large city; working in a temporary building; supports 
two full time workers, the director and a domestic art teacher and 
four part time workers. ‘The program includes informal religious 
services for children and young people on Sunday, Daily Vacation 
Bible School, organized club groups for intermediate age and above, 
class or playground groups for those under intermediate age. “The 
item $7745.00 listed under “Other” maintains a clinic with special 
staff and equipment not included elsewhere in the budget—672 per- 
sons are registered in clubs and classes. 

House D. Established 1909 in a manufacturing city’s polyglot 
population, maintains a three story well-equipped building erected 
for the work, a staff of five full time workers, a girls’ worker 
a boys’ worker, kindergarten, nursery matron and office secretary. 
The director has part time responsibilities elsewhere in Presbytery. 
In addition there are eight part time workers. Activities include an 
organized church, Sunday school, employment bureau, nursery, public 
baths, library, clubs or classes for all ages; also nationality groups, 
foreign language churches and the week day school of religious edu- 
cation meet at the center. The house is in touch with over one 
thousand families. 

House E. Established 1910 in a commercial and residential 
section of a large city; equipment, a renovated church and residence; 
budget for salaries provides five full time workers, director, girls’ 
worker, visitor, Italian pastor and secretary, and six part time 
workers, also four students give half time in return for room and 
training under supervision. The item $8911.19 under “Other” 
provides a music department and a self-supporting school for in- 
dustrial people. Other activities are an organized church and Sunday 
school, clubs and classes for all ages, a forum, Daily Vacation Bible 
School and summer outings at Presbytery’s camp. 

House F. Established 1905 in foreign residential and manu- 


[R375 


facturing district of large city; completely equipped three story brick 
building designed for Neighborhood House and a summer camp. 
Staff made up of five full time workers, director, head of residence, 
secretary, director of children’s work, and nursery matron and nine 
part time workers. Program includes Sunday school, informal re- 
ligious services, nursery, kindergarten, extensive club and class work 
for children and young people, home visitation, Daily Vacation Bible 
School and summer camp. Activities reach 2500 to 3000 persons. 

House G. Established in 1901 on the edge of foreign resident 
and manufacturing district of a small residential city, medium-sized 
two storied stucco house adapted to work. Staff: two full time 
women workers. Activities include Sunday school, Woman’s Bible 
Class, informal religious services, classes and clubs for all ages, Daily 
Vacation Bible School and playground. Reaches 560 people through 
its activities. 

House H. Established 1921 in a Jewish residential district of a 
large city, temporarily operates in an old church building adapted for 
a Neighborhood House; supports two full time workers, director and 
girls’ worker and a part time boys’ worker. Activities include a small 
number of girls’ and boys’ clubs, a forum, Daily Vacation Bible 
School, playground and summer outings at Presbytery’s camp. 

House I. Established 1918 in the foreign residential and manu- 
facturing district of a large city, operates on the ground floor of a 
two family frame house, unsuited to Neighborhood House work. 
Maintains one full-time worker, director and club leader, and a part 
time childrens’ worker and assistant. Activities are Sunday school, 
citizenship classes, a play school, boys’ and girls’, young peoples’ clubs, 
a woman’s club, home visitation and Daily Vacation Bible School. 
Reaches about 300 people through its activities. 

House J. Established in 1894 in a downtown Italian district. 
of a large city. Building erected for purpose. Supports four full 
time workers, director, assistant director, girls’ worker and secretary 
and approximately 20 part time workers (18 of these merely teach 
a particular class—music or sewing etc.) Activities are mainly in- 
dustrial and domestic arts classes, recreational programs, a music 
school, a few clubs and home visitation. “The item $1325.29 under 
“Other” meets part of the expense of a music school. Reaches 1225 
people through its activities. 


Until every Neighborhood House adopts the practice of filing 
complete accounts of all expenditures, no absolute aggregate 
of the cost of Neighborhood House work for the country 
can be estimated. Self-supporting clubs, a kindergarten milk 
account, relief given by an individual worker, frequently never 
appear on a financial statement. These omissions make calcula- 


[ 38 ] 


tion of the complete cost of operation of a center or all centers 
impossible. However, an estimate of the expenditures of 22 cen- 
ters shows an annual expenditure of $386,223.90, divided as 
follows: 





Distribution of Bud get—22 hte he: Houses Per cent 
Salaries of Staff. . . Gui c (OADLOSY bagels 42.8 
General Operating Recenee A Ane Maser Or teanstnay CN TA Se By 26.4 
Maimtenances Opabiden sete, 60s iil. aee-s 63,829.24 16.5 
Relief and Community Cooperation. . . 2,130.25 0.5 
Furniture and Permanent Equipment. . 2,570.06 0.7 
LO farteles $m Se Jal Lssanibabrieith eso Ulee A 6.9 
Special Funds (summer etc. erie ie te 5. pate cee L 6.2 
Crrand Votal te) vei.) 00,220.70NE et UOr0 


The Budget Form for a Neighborhood House (see page 93) sug- 
gests mutually exclusive categories for estimating and listing ex- 
penditures. If all Neighborhood Houses would adopt this form, 
comparisons of budgets might be the basis for many constructive 
suggestions. Difficulty in estimating the total cost of opera- 
tion has arisen when clubs and organizations within the Center 
are self-supporting. In such cases small city associations of the 
Young Womens Christian Associations follow one of two 
methods: 


1. To include the club or organization budget in the Center’s 
budget as both receipt and expense item. ‘This is simply to show that 
this amount is handled by the center and appears on the books in a 
lump sum. 


2. Budgets for clubs or organizations separately. In this case 
the Neighborhood House auditor should audit the club books and 
club treasurer’s reports, and the auditor’s statement should appear in 
the annual report of the Neighborhood House directly below that of 
his statement for the Neighborhood House accounting. In either 
case the right of club members to raise and aie their own money 
should be safe guarded. 


The accounts of a church included in the Neighborhood 
House may be kept this way. The larger presbyteries have one 
auditor for all Centers. very Center should have all books 
audited at least once a year. “Light on Finance,” though written 
primarily for the Young Womens’ Christian Association, contains 
many other helpful suggestions on budgeting and other finance 
problems also applicable to a Neighborhood House. 


[ 39 ] 


CHART 7 


Sources of Support 


Twenty-five Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses 


ageae ee #179,000 ee 


Individuals *75,000 

H d 

Meer ean OLOCO 

e } 

grmunity 419000 fi 


Other 
Denominations #3500 


Various 
Other Sources *39,000 ae 


1382500 





[40°] 


Analysis of expenditures and discussion of budgets immediate- 
ly leads to many questions. How are the Neighborhood Houses 
supported? How can they increase budgets when necessary? 
What methods are used to raise money? The survey sought data 
to make an analysis of sources of support. Conclusions are pic- 
tured in Chart 7. In 25 Neighborhood Houses the bulk $179,- 
000 out of $382,500, their total support, came from Presby- 
terian agencies—synods, presbyteries and presbyterial societies, 
churches and the Board of National Missions. A comparison of 
this chart with Chart 6, Composition of Boards of Directors, 
is significant. It reveals the relationship between support and 
administrative responsibility. Many of the individuals who gave 
large amounts which made up the $75,000 listed under ‘Indi- 
vidual Gifts” were Presbyterians, contributing directly to the Cen- 
ter; $67,000 was received from house revenues and the local 
community; three Centers receive a total of $19,000 from Com- 
munity Chests; joint administration with another mission board 
brings $3,500 from another denomination in one Center; $39,000 
listed “various other sources,” includes interest on invested funds, 
balance from the previous year, special subscriptions and other- 
wise unclassified receipts. But three houses were operating on 
large endowments. Two depended chiefly on large gifts from a 
small number of donors. Three received considerable sums from 
the Community Chest. The rest depended principally on Pres- 
byterian funds. The amount of support received from the imme- 
diate locality and Neighborhood House constituency varied wide- 
ly according to the Center’s age, the economic condition of the 
constituency, and the policies of the staff. The $67,000 secured 
from the local community represented returns from local drives, 
house and club dues, public baths and clinics. Study of the indi- 
vidual budgets revealed the fact that out of 25 Neighborhood 
Houses, only 7 were receiving more than $1,000 from the local 
community. Of these 7, the revenue of one was chiefly depend- 
ent on a clinic, another on the long established local church, not 
on general Neighborhood House activities, and a third on public 
baths and employment bureau fees. One of the cardinal prin- 
ciples of a Neighborhood House—to work with people not for 
people—is involved in this problem of source of income. A self- 
supporting Neighborhood House should be the goal. Does it 
seem a farcry? Five of the houses receiving the most from their 
constituencies are from 15 to 30 years old. Self-support requires 


[ 41] 


a gradual process of education, but it is not impossible. One 
director told that a senior boys’ club turned over thousands of 
dollars annually. Part was expended for their own interest and 
a part for the Center’s needs. This did not happen. It repre- 
sented twelve years of careful training under the supervision of a 
forward-looking director. The men of the neighborhood did not 
consider that house “a charity place for kids.” Other houses 
were struggling to break down an “everything free for all policy,” 
which had proved pauperizing to the community and had devel- 
oped little or no sense of responsibility among the Neighborhood 
House people. Fees scaled to meet the capacity of the individual, 
house membership and local drives, continued and gradual edu- 
cation focused toward self-support, demand the serious considera- 
tion of every worker. The experience of Gary Neighborhood 
House in raising money in the larger community through appeal 
letters at special times of the year, through key people in the local 
churches, through cooperation with the steel company, through 
constant publicity, has been very successful. 

Since only one house studied was jointly administered with 
another denomination no facts or conclusions on the value of 
interdenominational cooperation are warranted. It might be well 
to experiment further in this direction. Certainly few projects 
lend themselves more readily to interdenominational team work 
than the Neighborhood House with its lack of emphasis on creed 
and dogma. The increasing number of Community Chests often 
brings up the question, “shall a Neighborhood House secure its 
budget or part of its budget through the chest?” That a 
Neighborhood House might cooperate in a Community Chest 
is not inconceivable and in some cities may be advisable. 
Three Centers already receive a portion of their budgets from 
community funds. The advantages and disadvantages of co- 
operation will have to be weighed carefully in each community 
and determined by the policies of the individual chest. In 1920 
only 25 Young Women’s Christian Associations were participat- 
ing in chests, in 1924 the number participating had increased to 
180. The pitfalls and values of participation, though pointed 
out from the Association standpoint in “Light on Finance” are 
instructive for the Neighborhood House too. It will be well for 
any Center operating in a town or city with a community fund to 
give serious consideration to cooperation for a part of its budget. 
Frank W. Persons expresses the purpose of the Community Chest: 


[ 42 ] 


“Tf in your city the directors of the community fund can be 
made harmoniously representative of the interest of the givers and 
of the participating agencies; if your city is really one community, 
not broken up into two or more rival sections; if there is a notable 
community spirit and an absence of racial, religious, social, and com- 
mercial cliques; then this concentration of financial responsibility will 
find conditions which should favor the attaining of the advantages 
and the avoiding of the difficulties. 

“We should recognize the fact that no social agency exists for 
the purpose of adding to its own power and prestige, but for the 
purpose of contributing to human welfare. I predict that in the 
future the social agency that tries to stand alone, uncooperative in its 
point of view, individualistic in its actions, will atrophy and die.” 


RECORDS AND REPORTS 


HEN we ask for money, we need convincing facts and fig- 
ures which demonstrate that expenditures are wisely made. 
. . . Lo provide us with the necessary equipment, someone must 
dig into records, make careful analyses and comparative studies 
and put the material into usable form. The men and women who 
are absorbed in teaching, healing, advising, helping, move swiftly 
from one pressing demand to another. They furnish us with vivid 
human narratives which reach the heart and stir the imagination, 
but we need supporting facts to supplement them. Financial re- 
sponse is ultimately dependent upon faith in the judgment of an 
agency’s management.”* 

The importance of adequate records in every Neighborhood 
House cannot be overestimated. In the organization and man- 
agement of every business, writes Herbert Hoover, “statistical 
and fact information play an important part. In proportion as 
this information is promptly received and accurately compiled the 
business will tend to prosper and the organization to function 
smoothly. Short sighted policies in this respect have frequently 
resulted in financial loss.” This holds true even more strikingly 
in a Neighborhood House where the loss may be not merely a 
financial supporter but a human life lived inadequately instead 
of abundantly. Records for the sake of records are useless, but 


*Tolman Lee, Funds and Friends. P. 76. 
Le4+oe] 


they help to crystallize the thinking of the club leader, give a 
basis for planning future programs, and supply information for 
comparative studies upon which generalization and recommenda- 
tions for the individual Center and the whole movement may be 


based. 


Annual or quarterly financial statements and daily records of 
group enrollments and attendances are kept consistently in all 
houses. Chicago Presbytery has an excellent, concise blank for 
this purpose. Few, however, file club and class programs or cur- 
ricula. Woodland Center has instituted a simple method of 
recording what actually takes place during the club period. 
Samples are included among suggested record forms (page 99). 
By filing these in a loose leaf note-book, one for each group, a 
complete record of the club’s activities is always on hand. Such 
concrete information not only gives a new worker a sound basis 
for planning a club program, but affords an opportunity for a 
director to keep in touch with the progress of the club, though 
unable to be present at each meeting. It also requires that the 
club leader define his methods and objectives and evaluate results. 

Most houses kept a card catalogue of all individuals connected 
with the house. This data should contain name, address, date of 
birth, Neighborhood House affiliations, church membership, em- 
ployment and nationality of every person in anyway connected 
with the center. A few centers kept nothing of this sort, could 
not state accurately the number of persons the house reached 
without comparing all club rolls, had no way of checking the 
extent of any one individual’s utilization of the house resources, 
or of comparing complete house enrollments from one year to 
another. Another card catalogue which fifteen houses find ex- 
tremely useful is a file by families. Data contained on the family 
card should include, in addition to the family name and address, 
the name, date of birth, occupation or school, church membership 
and house affiliations of each member of the household, and con- 
nections with other social and religious agencies. Also, the card 
should include the minimum of information required by the local 
Social Service Register, if there be one. From this card one can 
see at a glance how far the Neighborhood House is reaching the 
entire family, what other influences are going into the home, 
and which workers are in touch with the family. Even this 
simple card catalogue will be invaluable for cooperation with 
other agencies, a reliable source for statistical information, an 


Bis aa 


economical mailing list, and an essential for acquainting every 
new worker with the Neighborhood House constituency. 


An occasional house kept some report or simple form of case 
record for families, receiving special assistance or advice. Some 
residents’ sympathetic understanding of human troubles and long 
stay in one community have made their Neighborhood Houses 
trusted sources of information, advice and inspiration. ‘These 
workers often play an important role in shaping human destinies. 
Such relationships are not established overnight. Yet they may 
be wrecked in an hour by the departure of a resident, who has 
personally won the confidence of his neighbors. Unfortunately 
records of this service are not found in black and white. A min- 
ister on the eve of transferring to a distant parish remarked, 
“When my successor comes, he will have to start in with our 
families where I did. I have left no report of how I attemped 
to help some families in my congregation overcome their difficul- 
ties and problems.” In the Neighborhood Houses, as in the 
Churches, the fear of betraying the confidence of members, the 
lack of secretarial assistance, and always the pressing urgency of 
appointments, meetings and unexpected interruptions have stood 
in the way of recording one of the biggest contributions any 
worker makes to his people. This is poor economy! In view of 
the appalling labor turnover of our staff, would it not be worth 
while to keep some simple notation of family histories, and the 
role the Neighborhood House has played so that one worker 
may commence where the last one left off with reliable data as 
a basis for an intelligent diagnosis of a family situation, with full 
knowledge of methods already pursued to determine satisfac- 
torily new procedure for a formation of a future plan for the 
family or individual concerned? 


Thus far no successful method for keeping in touch with 
Neighborhood House alumni has been evolved. A systematic 
“follow up” might help to connect ex-club members with Pres- 
byterian agencies near their new homes. If we could devise some 
means of continued communication, many times alumni estimates 
of the Neighborhood House in retrospect, whether from a dis- 
tance or from residence in the community, might prove valuable 
advice to the worker. 


“The law of life is change”—change also seems to be the law 
of the Neighborhood House! Change in workers, change in con- 
stituency, change in surrounding community, all these result in 


[ 45. ] 


change of program of activities. Changes of programs may go 
around in a cycle, one staff member after another trying and dis- 
carding methods already found unsatisfactory, or each change 
may be a successive and ever advancing step determined by care- 
ful weighing and evaluating of previous experiments. Sound 
evaluations require records of past experience, community surveys, 
financial reports, accurate enrollments, details of programs, and 


personality studies. 


PUBLICIEY 


PUBLICITY and finances also go hand in hand. Financial 
support depends on publicity of one kind or another. 
Publicity among the local constituency is carried on through 

posters, local and foreign language press, electric signs on the 

building, a house paper, and appeal and informational letters. 

Most houses interpret their purpose to their neighbors in person- 

al visits. All depend largely on the local members to do their 

advertising. One house finds its own athletic teams its best 
publicity. 

But for a supporting constituency an active policy is necessary. 
Many centers send their staff to speak at Presbyterian gather- 
ings. Personal letters and appeals; snapshots; monthly, quarter- 
ly and printed annual reports, and house papers are sent to pros- 
pective donors and interested agencies. Church bulletins and 
newspapers are used to keep the work before the public. Church 
extension luncheons, addressed by staff workers, and entertaining 
guests at the settlement residence at a time when they may get 
acquainted with the staff and visit Neighborhood House activities, 
are ways of interesting people in the work. Some Centers have 
used the questionable method of “exhibiting our product,” occa- 
sionally with success. On the whole, sending boys and girls, 
even young men and women to give testimonials before a group 
of “Uptown Folk” is unwise from the point of view of the 
child, contrary to accepted educational theories, and defeats the 
very purpose of the Neighborhood House. 

However, dramatics and pageants presented by Neighborhood 
House children for a larger community, have been extremely 
successful in interpreting immigrant backgrounds to our American 


Lab. 


populations and in bringing a better understanding between na- 
tive and foreign-born. The week before Christmas Jan Hus 
House presented “an Evening with the Czecho-Slovaks” at Aeo- 
lian Hall. The first part of the program pictured a Czech wed- 
ding festival, the latter half a manger scene with Czech carols 
and all the curious peasant Christmas rites and traditions. ‘This 
charmingly exquisite and colorful glimpse of an immigrant’s back- 
ground established a strong bond of sympathy in that audience of 
influential Americans and Czechs. Dramatics, festivals, and con- 
certs on a smaller scale have filled the same need in other places. 
There are untold possibilities in publicity of this kind. 


The public and supporting constituency should be kept con- 
stantly informed, and a way must be found to do this. Facts 
pictorially presented, intelligent, reliable statements of returns 
for Neighborhood House service rendered, must be continually 
set forth in letters, posters, and the press and by word of mouth. 
Business houses have discovered that lapses in advertising causes 
an immediate falling off in trade which a sudden spurt of publi- 
city will not recover. One large social work organization in New 
York City has a rule—“at least one publicity article a week in a 
widely circulated daily paper.” Religious agencies are inclined 
to consider advertising “for commercial use only.” Dr. Hess of 
the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce declares that “ad- 
vertising is educating.” Educating the public to see how it can 
make life richer in the fundamental values of living through the 
Neighborhood House is one of the distinct functions of each 
Center. 


ACTIVITIES 


THE program of a Neighborhood House does not lend itself 

readily to scientific analysis or statistical evaluations. As Mr. 
Holden writes, “It is often difficult for the outsider to discover 
what is the real underlying source of concern to the settlement 
worker. ‘The reasons for the difference are the complexity of the 
activities themselves as well as the fact that what is often the 
most apparent to an observer is not necessarily the most funda- 
mental.” Here, again, one confronts the intangible. 


Larne) 


The place of group activities in the program of the Neighbor- 
hood House as a means of religious education is clearly discussed 
by Miss Klyver of Teachers College: 


“Religious education should provide opportunity for the fullest 
realization of the child’s present resources; it should liberate and 
guide present capacities: it should select and direct experiences in 
order to attain a desired change-growth. Religious education is a 
process of development. and involves learning from experience, 
modifying actions because of experience and using the results of past 
and present experience in solving future problems and directing sub- 
sequent experience. Growth is a characteristic of life; it is a con- 
tinuous process, leading ever into the future. Like a familiar de- 
finition of education—religious education aims to ‘make men want 
the right things, and to make them better able so to control the forces 
of nature and themselves that they can satisfy these wants. We have 
to make use of nature, to cooperate with each other, and to improve 
ourselves”* Stated in terms of comparative values religious educa- 
tion is ‘socially organized desire that certain desires rather than others 
should control human life.’** 

“Probably most of us would agree upon this statement of the 
purpose of religious education: that it is intended to promote by 
means of planned experiences which have been selected because of 
their ultimate value in character development, the continuous growth 
of children into complete social adjustment in a universal brother- 
hood based on the ideals and teachings of Jesus. 

“If it is in the relationships of individuals that religion func- 
tions; if religious education is to be accomplished through character 
and conduct changes on the basis of higher values, then there must 
be provided in the environment opportunity for growth in attitudes, 
habits, standards, and consequently for real character and conduct 
changes. 

“In the experiences of living together children learn the values 
of life and reconstruct their experiences by means of their judgment 
upon these values. ‘The particular function of religious education is 
to provide situations in which the individual will grow in the ability 
to reconstruct his experiences on the basis of the highest values of 
life. It is not the function of religious education to introduce any 
new value, but rather to operate on or within all values and apprecia- 
tions. In other words, religious education has to do with one’s at- 
titude toward life, or toward the things of life. 

“A group of Jewish girls came into a neighborhood house as a 
club early last fall. From the very beginning they refused to take 


*E. L. Thorndike, Education (1912) p. 11. 
**G. A. Coe, Psychology of Religion, p. 67. 


[482] 


part in any of the general activities of the house and persisted in call- 
ing the Italian girls of the same age, in another club—Dagoes. They 
were uncooperative and seemed unresponsive to anything done with 
or for them. Early in February two of them had a serious quarrel 
which threatened to split the club. ‘This provided an opportunity for 
a number of discussions concerning their attitudes toward each other 
and toward other club groups in the neighborhood house. ‘There 
was a gradual change in their attitude and at the end of March they 
voted to use their club dues in giving a party for this same group of 
Italian girls, although they had, earlier in the year, felt that they 
must use all of this money in paying for an outing for themselves. 
Thus in their experience together and in their judgment of these ex- 
periences they were beginning through a change in attitude a very 
real social adjustment. 

“In modern life the group is perhaps the chief means through 
which the individual expresses his desires and strives to reach the 
fulfillment of his interests. Any group is made up of persons act- 
ing together for some common end. From the point of view of 
activity the group is not merely a number of persons, but these persons 
in relation to each other and to other persons and groups outside. 
There is then in any group activity a series of relations and a con- 
tinuous adjustment. Group responses are complex means by which 
the needs and purposes of the individual members (the real ends of 
life and effort) are achieved. The group must be viewed clearly as 
a means of achieving something, not as an end desirable in itself. 
With these meanings of group, and group activity in mind, there is 
infinitely more to group activity than speaking the symbol glibly, en- 
rolling a given number of active children or adults under a leader, 
putting them in a room together, and leaving the outcome to chance. 

“The development of a group necessitates not only working with 
the group, but also with each individual in it. The attitudes of 
members of the group toward each other, toward the leader as a 
member of the group, and toward the total environment contain the 
elements of growth in the attitudes, habits and standards which make 
for “conscious, progressive social adjustment.’ Such relationships 
within and without the group are the essential qualities of group 
activity. 

“The character and kinds of relationships between individuals 
and groups are, from our definition of religious education with its 
aim of continuous growth (through planned experiences) into com- 
plete social adjustment, essential qualities of religious education. A 
child, or an older person, cannot achieve growth in relationships, 
cannot make a progressive social adjustment unless he is a member of 
a group of his own age, in which he has an opportunity for active 
participation, expression and the judging of his interests. 


[ 49 ] 


“Tf we accept these concepts of religious education and of group — 
activity, each with its essential quality found in relationships, then — 
must we not agree that, in the particular type of controlled environ- 
ment provided by the neighborhood house, group activity is really the 
best means of religious education? In fact, how, without group 
activity (planned experiences selected because of their ultimate values 
in character development) based on the observed needs of specific 
groups can we expect to achieve any of the objectives of a real re- 
ligious education? 

“The task of religious education is to give the child an actual 
religious experience at each stage in his development. ‘This is to be 
accomplished by means of carefully planned and graded experience 
which will include skill, knowledge and appreciations found valuable 
in carrying on the activities of real religious life and related to the 
activities themselves. If the purpose of the neighborhood house is 
to furnish aid in the selection and promotion of experience of the 
largest life values, then the neighborhood house must include in its 
program, not only the essential facts, principles and processes found 
useful in the daily contacts of life, but also the activities required in 
these contacts. ‘The program will include not only the ideas and 
skills which are essential to the pupils’ growing experience, but it will 
also include the purposeful activities or enterprise in which the child 
shares as a member of a social group.’’* 


Fair judgment of the achievement of an individual group 
could only be reached after frequent observations of club meet- 
ings over an extended period and the application to individual 
club members of tests for character transformation, which to the 
writer’s knowledge are not available. A sound estimate of a 
program for group activities as a successful response to neighbor- 
hood needs could only be made after an exhaustive study of each 
community. 

Yet, the study did reveal certain facts. Group activities are 
the major emphasis of the Neighborhood House. There were 
approximately one thousand stated groups listed in the winter 
programs of the thirty Centers. In addition, most houses have 
traditional high spots in the year’s calendar, such as Italian Men’s 
Club Dance at Welcome Hall, Father and Son Banquet at Chris- 
topher House and children’s dramatics at Christ Church House. 
Although these were visited occasionally, no study was made of 
them. Observations were confined chiefly to the stated organized 
group activities. 

*Proceedings of Conference on Neighborhood House Work. Miss Faye Klyver: 
Opportunities for Religious Education in Group Activities. 


[ 50 ] 


The frequency of occurrence and types of stated group activi- 
ties was discovered. The results are given in Chart 8. In- 
adequate equipment while the new building was under construc- 
tion forced one Center to abandon boys’ work for 1924 and 1925, 
hence only twenty-nine Centers are listed as conducting boys’ 
clubs. Religious services included an organized church or infor- 
mal religious services, Sunday schools, young people’s discussion 
and worship periods, and vesper services. Other activities not 
listed in the chart but found occasionally were: savings bank, em- 
ployment bureaus, lunch counters, gardens, laundry, junior 
church and immigrant aid service. 

All groups were divided into three classes: first, Highly or- 
ganized groups with definite enrollment and officers, example, 
self-governing clubs. Second, Semi-organized groups with a defi- 
nite enrollment, but no officers, a class group, example, kinder- 
garten. Third, Unorganized, no group organization at all, ex- 
ample, clinic, playground. An analysis of these by sex is shown 
in Table No. 2. 

The abandonment by two houses of all gymnasium activities 
for boys, while their new buildings were under construction, may 
account for the small number (only seventy-six) of semi-organ- 
ized activities for men. Boys and men are interested in club or- 


TABLE II 
Group ACTIVITIES 


BY ORGANIZATION AND SEX 


Type of Organization of 
Group 

















Female 


Highly Organized .. 
Semi-Organized 


Unorganized tin. re). 






oO Era Te Se SES lo Value’ ot 


CHART 8 













[ 52 ] 


Activities 


Thirty Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses 








1924+-192sS 

Activities Houses 
1 Girls Clubs 30 
2 Boys Clubs 29 
3, Athletics or Gym. 22 LU ee 
4) DViBTS: 22 Se 
5 SundaySchools 21 as 
6 Domestic Science 2) 
7 Womens Groups 20 
8 Kindergartens 18 
9 Library 7 a 
10 Musiclnstruction (7 
11 RetigiousServices 16 Pap AM Ce en GTO 
9 MensGroups 16 a 
3 Primary Groups 14 Pee 
4 Story Hour ee 
is Playgrounds 9 Ti 
i6 Mixed Clubs 9 
17 ChristianEndeavor 9 
18 FolkuSocial Dancing 8 Be Ae see 
i9 English ecivics 8 TT 
20 Industrial Art 7 [a The bars indicate the 
1 Art Classes & Rae number of Neighborhood 
2 Dramatis 6 Si Seay eat eae 
93 Clinics 5 Be ea the activities listed. 
24 Public Bath 4 
25 Movies:repuiar 4 Jal ) 
26 Foreipn Language Classes 5; i 
27 Day Nursery 3 i! 








ee EE EEE eV 


ganization per se, but girls do not organize so readily. Hence, 
girls’ club leaders have fallen back on the class group, such as the 
sewing class, the cooking class, the art class. The efficacy of such 
a program cannot be judged without knowing the community and 
the interests and backgrounds of the girls. Perhaps the schools 
offer no household arts training. Maybe a group of young busi- 
ness women about to be married have requested domestic science 
training. Then these classes in the Neighborhood House are a 
good thing. Yet the very fact that self-government is a difficult 
achievement in a girls’ group, shows a distinct need for it. Are 
girls’ groups affording as much training for citizenship as the 
highly organized boys’ groups? How are they helping girls soon 
to confront the perplexities of the business or industrial world? 
Will young women vote more intelligently at national and muni- 
cipal elections because they have attended a club at a Neighbor- 
hood House? In addition to the rudiments of housekeeping, 
what philosophy of life is the Neighborhood House giving to the 
young woman soon to establish her own home? Are young women 
receiving the sort of training which will fit them to take a place 
of leadership in their communities? 


Next, an attempt was made to examine group programs in 
relationship to standard national organizations, the public school, 
other Neighborhood House activities and the immigrants’ own 
background. 

The extent to which well known organization curricula are 
followed is shown in Chart No. 9. Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts 
are most widely used, with young people’s Christian Endeavor, 
Girl Reserve, Campfire, Bluebirds and Woodcraft League fol- 
lowing in the order listed. Even when the program of a national 
organization has been adopted it is often used with considerable 
variation. 

A more detailed analysis of club programs used, revealed that 
in 990 stated activities, 215 (22 per cent) were following stand- 
ard curricula. These included standard Sunday school materials, 
Westminster Guild study books, Scouting, Campfire, Girl Re- 
serve, Woodcraft, Mayflower, Junior Citizenship, music courses, 
and prescribed public school curricula, where English classes, 
kindergartens, recreation and gymnasium periods were conducted 
in cooperation with the Board of Education or by public school 
teachers. Intermediate girls groups are particularly successful fol- 
lowing the Girl Reserves, Campfire, and Girl Scout material. The 


[ 53 ] 


CHART 9 


National 
Organizations 


in 
Twenty-nine Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses 


Houses 


B 
EE 


Ct ee 
ey. 5 eee 
Bluebirds 2 a 


Wood-craft 
League i Le 


The bars indicate the number of Neighborhood Houses making use of 
the national organizations listed — Y.P.S.C.E. equals Young People’s 
Society Christian Endeavor. 





[58 


choice between these three depended considerably upon the city 
director of the national organization and the adaptability of the 
program to suit the individual group. One Center had developed 
its own girls’ department curriculum. The honors suggested 
were a synthesis of honors that were given in outlines of these 
national organizations, with additions, especially suited to the 
neighborhood girls. An outline of these honors was given each 
club leader and the members at the beginning of the year. The 
honors were classified as physical, educational, social and spiritual 
and one meeting a month was devoted to each division. The 
group decided in advance which particular honor or honors would 
be worked for at the next meeting. One month, the first meeting 
was devoted to a health talk by a representative from the dis- 
trict health center; the club next went to the Metropolitan Mu- 
seum of Art to look up costume designs for a play to be presented 
later; at a third meeting younger sisters were taken on a hike, 
the members of the older club acting as hostesses; at a fourth 
meeting the club decided to learn a well known hymn, individual 
reports were given on the circumstances under which the hymn 
was written and the biography of the author. In addition a short 
business meeting, sometimes a simple service of worship, and a 
period of games was usually a part of each club period. Where 
the honors are based upon careful study of the group needs and 
interests, this plan has proved very successful. It also avoids 
the danger of following a national organization program too 
closely for the best interest of the group. 

It should be kept in mind, however, that real advantages are 
derived from the help and supervision of the national and local 
executives of these organizations. The feeling, that the Neigh- 
borhood House group is a part of a national movement, is often 
an incentive to the club members to attain a high degree of excel- 
lence. 


The Mayflower Program, published by the Pilgrim Press, 
and the Junior Citizen, published by the Abingdon Press, were 
widely used for primary and younger junior girls and boys re- 
spectively. These programs are especially well adapted for the 
use of volunteers and untrained leaders. 

The remaining 775 (78 per cent) activities followed programs 
worked out by the leader or the group—or sometimes by both. 
In cases where the club leader was using the project method, the 
last plan was usually followed. The club, with the leader acting 


[ 55 ] 


as adviser or “referee,” developed its own program out of the 
experience and interest of club members. ‘The responsibility of 
planning was a worth while activity in itself. To determine ona 
course of action, to consider the relative needs of different fields 
of service, to contemplate the interests and desires of the other 
club members, to evaluate the merits of suggested programs, to 
see the necessity for subordinating purely individual wishes—all 
these are required before a satisfactory program for the entire 
group is reached. One director always had each club appoint a 
program committee for the following meeting. During the week 
she met with the committee, advised with them, pointed out the 
advantages of a well balanced club hour—neither all play nor 
all work. When the club arrived, the committee chairman took 
charge of the entire hour with very little “coaching” from the 
Director. Boys and girls of ten years old managed their own 
club meetings in this way and did so admirably! 

Unless the club leader is very skilled, there are two dangers 
in this method. One, that she will dominate the group thinking, 
not allow enough initiative, and not give the group a chance to 
make a decision, see it through and reap or suffer the consequences. 
A second danger is that the club may be given too much leeway 
before it is capable of planning really purposeful action. If this 
occurs, programs are apt to be given up entirely to aimless recrea- 
tion, too often the program leads nowhere, the club seems futile 
and ambitious members soon drop out. 

Many Neighborhood House club members, themselves, have 
little background for planning their own programs and frequent- 
ly are not just sure what they do want to do—beyond playing 
basket ball and coming to the house. Often part time workers— 
students and volunteers—are not able to devote the time neces- 
sary and have not had experience in the use of project method. To 
overcome this difficulty, a number of Centers are using a combina- 
tion of project method and formal programs in clubs. A formal 
program which allows plenty of room for individual choice and 
time to follow out particular projects, the group may desire in 
connection with it, gives the group a starting point, that to it 1S 
concrete, and offers a consecutive and progressive plan, which may 
be related to the Sunday school, day school, or other clubs in the 
Center, and gives the leader a well worked out foundation for 
more elaborate programizing. 


A brief summary of the types of programs used may be help- 
[ 56 ] 


ful. Kindergarten groups, for the most part, followed the courses 
prescribed by the kindergarten training school, from which the 
teacher had graduated. In one or two places, as for instance in 
the Erie Neighborhood House, the kindergarten was operated by 
the public school. This kindergarten is another example of the 
pioneer function of the Neighborhood House. When the Center 
was first started, a kindergarten was opened for the Russian pre- 
school age children of the district. After sixteen years, the school 
board became sufficiently aware of the need for a kindergarten in 
the district to furnish a teacher. Within another year, an addi- 
tion to the school building made it possible for the kindergarten 
to be housed at the school, and supported entirely by city taxes. 

Primary age children usually met in large groups of twenty to 
forty for games and story periods. The Christopher House Doll 
Club where the children divided into “families,” impersonated 
the characters of a home and learned home making by playing 
“house” was a popular afternoon period for youthful Polish 
neighbors. The informal dramatization of simple stories, which 
called for Christian attitudes, loyalties and responses to the 
daily experiences of the child’s world, were the most popular 
method of teaching the six to ten year old groups in many Centers. 

Junior age (ten to twelve years old) boys and girls met sepa- 
rately, if in small groups, and followed standard curricula or 
programs arranged by the leaders. Larger groups had a kind of 
continuation Daily Vacation Bible School, week day school of reli- 
gion, or playground periods in the gymnasium and out of doors. 

More intermediate groups used standard national programs 
than any other one age group. At this age, boys and girls met 
separately, and began to seriously assume responsibility for self- 
government. Many leaders looked upon self-government, as a 
definite part of the club program, and did not consider it merely 
a means to an end. This training in self-government had been 
further carried out in a few Centers through a Junior House 
Council, composed of representatives from the younger clubs of 
the house. These youthful councils were given some minor au- 
thority in maintaining general Neighborhood House discipline 
and were represented on the Senior House Council. 

Senior clubs, those having members between sixteen and twen- 
ty years of age, were self-governing for the most part. The 
young men’s groups were largely concerned with athletic events 
—basket ball, baseball, track and bowling contests occupied much 


[57] 


of their time. Several of the largest Centers had adopted 
the policy of having gymnasium periods separate from the regu- 
lar club meeting. This allows a more economical use of the 
gymnasium and the time of the physical education instructor, gives 
an adequate opportunity for practical lessons of good sportsman- 
ship, fair play, team work, and loyalty learned in competitive 
group games, without encroaching on the club period, where seri- 
ous discussions and debates, management of the club business, 
and contact with Christian leaders are helping to build character. 

The olders girls’ groups, also, were self-governing, though 
perhaps to a lesser degree. Some had their regular periods in 
the gymnasium, their own basket ball teams, folk dancing classes, 
or formal calisthenics. Many met as supper groups, coming 
directly from the mill or office to the Neighborhood House. 
Committees of the young women cooked and planned the meal 
on a limited budget.’ The evening was given over to a social 
“set-together,” informal discussions, special classes or lectures. 
The leader met with the girls during the entire period and usu- 
ally exerted her influence through personal friendship with the 
members, rather than through planned discussions. 


Dramatics were a popular activity with senior clubs of both 
sexes. A few senior clubs were mixed groups. This was the 
exception rather than the rule, except for Young Peoples’ Socie- 
ties and Sunday Evening Tea Hours, which were ordinarily at- 
tended by young men and women. 

Adult groups for women included kindergarten mothers’ 
groups, dress making, nursing, English classes, lectures, and after- 
noon prayer meetings. The Housekeepers Club at Westminster 
House was the largest women’s club visited. Old and young 
women met together, dividing into smaller circles for work. A 
brief outline of a part of their program in one year included: “‘Pic- 
nic at Fort Erie in June; surprise birthday party for the head 
worker with presentation of picture for the women’s club-room; 
study of ‘The Twelve Greatest Women in America’; Christmas 
sale of clothing and fancy work, including sewing, embroidery, 
knitting, crocheting, weaving, millinery and tailoring . .. In 
order to relieve the necessity of planning hand work for ninety 
women each Thursday afternoon, the headworker suggested a play 
day once a month. She was met with the answer, ‘Don’t announce 
the day ahead or you’ll have a small meeting. We don’t want to 
play, we come to work.” These women furnish the fancy wares for 


[ 58 ] 


the Christmas and Easter sales, while the more substantial gar- 
ments are sold at reasonable prices to the members of the club 
throughout the season. ‘Though there are certain eventful occa- 
sions which they celebrate in song and dance and in fun galore 
they come primarily to the club to work. The work of the club 
was greatly facilitated through the devotion and volunteer ser- 
vice of eight women of Westminster Church.” 


Men’s groups included organizations of older boys who had 
grown up in the house and had become capable of independent 
administration; nationality lodges, with little real connection with 
the Neighborhood House; citizenship classes; and one or two 
community improvement associations. Several of the citizenship 
classes were accomplishing a splendid piece of interpretive work. 
In addition to helping men meet the requirements for citizenship 
examinations, they offered a chance for neighbors to form friend- 
ships, a common meeting place for many nationalities, a social 
hour at the end of the class period, and an easy avenue of ap- 
proach to the understanding of American customs and institu- 


tions. 


The Mount Elliott Improvement Association was composed 
of men living in the Mount Elliott district. The annual mem- 
bership was $2.00 a year. The Neighborhood House provided 
a meeting place and the Director acted in an advisory capacity, 
secured legal advice and recommended ways and means for ob- 
taining civic improvements. A trolley line from the district “to 
town,” improved service thereon, paved streets and other local 
reforms were secured within a short time through the efforts of 
the Association. Here again, is an example of a group learning 
the lessons of citizenship “by doing.” A group of men, unfami- 
liar with our institutions will derive as much from such efforts, 
as the community will profit by the new developments resulting. 
The members of the Mount Elliott Improvement Association 
were enthusiastic about “boosting the neighborhood.” Such an 
organization may be the answer to the problem of men’s work in 
the Neighborhood House. Most of the communities surrounding 
Neighborhood Houses still have room for further improvements! 


Among the strictly religious activities of the Centers studied 
were Sunday schools, week day schools of religion, organized 
churches, holding services in one or more languages, Christian 
Endeavor Societies, Daily Vacation Bible Schools, services of wor- 


[ 59 ] 


ship, young peoples’ discussion groups, children’s Sunday after- 
noon story hours, “Mothers meetings,” and Bible stories told 
through stereopticon or moving pictures. 

The organized churches were either the remains of old, es- 
tablished congregations, which had preceded the Neighborhood 
House, added to by new members from the district, or fairly 
young church organizations, sometimes with their own, some- 
times with provisional sessions. Several churches had Italian 
pastors and services conducted in the native tongue. “Mother’s 
meetings” were also often conducted in the immigrant language, 
and usually took the place of church services for women who 
could not leave home at the time of the regular morning or eve- 
ning service for preaching and worship. 


With a few exceptions, where some splendid original religious 
education programs were being developed particularly for chil- 
dren of foreign parentage, the Sunday schools were using stan- 
dard lesson materials, issued by the different denominations. 
Neighborhood House Sunday schools are an excellent laboratory 
to develop religious education projects for the immigrant child. 
More houses could make a unique contribution in this particular 
field of religious education, if experimental work could be fos- 
tered, in cooperation with university departments of religious edu- 
cation, and the results correlated for the benefit of other workers. 
In New York City, the Religious Education Department of 
Teachers College has helped the Neighborhood House very con- 
structively in this respect. 

The increase of week day schools of religion throughout the 
country as a whole has been paralleled in the Neighborhood 
Houses. Gary and other cities have a city plan for religious 
education. Here, the Community House cooperated with the 
Board of Religious Education by providing a meeting place for 
the group. In several cities, where no civic provision was made, 
a school of week day religion was the chief feature for primary 
and junior age boys and girls. Some of these schools were using 
standard materials, published by the Abingdon and Westminster 
Presses. Others were developing their own. Daily Vacation 
Bible Schools follow the Daily Vacation Bible Schools Associa- 
tion program rather closely. For the last few years the Pres- 
byterian Board of Christian Education has been publishing lesson 
materials, which have been used quite widely in Neighborhood 
Houses. Some have preferred to develop their own programs, 


[ 60 ] 


in order to correlate them with the winter program. A few have 
allowed particular classes within the groups to carry on their own 
projects. One group of twelve year old girls had a course in 
the “Care and Feeding of Infants,”? with many practical demon- 
strations by the mining company nurse, instead of the usual hand- 
work, which they had had for several years and were tired of. 
Another group, Scouts, met with the rest of the school for the 
opening service of worship, then spent the handcraft period work- 
ing out a Scout project for their advanced tests. 

Some of the less conventional religious services are worth 
noting. A Children’s Hour, held at five o’clock Sunday after- 
noons in front of a glowing log fire, commenced with a short 
service of worship followed by a story hour. The children had 
a share in planning the opening service, and thus learned the ele- 
ments of worship. Hymns and prayers that they liked and could 
understand were used. The story material was closely connected 
with the theme for the day and related to the experience of the 
child. The boys and girls took an active part in the program, 
repeating the prayers, retelling and discussing the story, thereby 
making the experience their own. No service more reverent, 
more religious, more carefully suited to the child was found any- 
where. 


The young peoples’ groups, meeting late Sunday afternoons, 
followed by “tea” and social hours, were the scene of vital reli- 
gious discussions. Staff workers, ministers, prominent citizens 
and club members led discussions on a wide variety of subjects— 
music, literature, art and religion. In one center special musical 
numbers were introduced. At the “tea” hour informal discussion 
of the afternoon’s topic frequently continued. Many personal 
religious problems, first aroused on Sunday afternoons, were later 
thought through in individual conferences with staff members. 


Nine Neighborhood Houses have made some attempt to cor- 
relate their program with the public school program, through 
the kindergarten, citizenship, and household art classes, or a city 
recreation department which directs physical education both at 
the Center and the public school. For the most part no exhaustive 
analyses of the public school curricula have been made as a basis 
for programizing in the Neighborhood House. There is room 
for progress in this direction. 

Eleven Centers are making an endeavor to unify their club 
programs into a Neighborhood House curriculum which provides 


[ 61 ] 


graded opportunities special for each age and sex. So far, this 
has been achieved only by departments or within a group of re- 
lated clubs. For instance, the athletic schedule of a boys’ depart- 
ment will include all house basket ball teams, or all the boys’ 
clubs of a Center are related in one general program. 


A few houses have related their week day curriculum to the 
Sunday school, but, in many cases, so many club children are not 
Sunday school members, this is impractical. 


The survey also tried to reveal the progress Neighborhood 
Houses had made in conserving the alien’s heritage of art, litera- 
ture, music and drama. Jan Hus and Howell House are out- 
standing examples of this, possibly because they reach Czechs 
a group particularly determined to preserve its national traditions, 
and partly because the ove nationality predominates in each Cen- 
ter. Folk dancing, drama, national singing clubs, foreign language 
services, foreign language schools, and supplying a meeting place 
for nationality lodges are all ways used to give the immigrant 
scope for group life. In these ways immigrant backgrounds are 
interpreted to the aliens’ children and to native Americans. Out 
of the 990 stated activities reported only 106 were conserving 
foreign culture im any way. 


Extent of Conservation of Foreign Culture No. of Houses 
Have no groups conserving foreign culture in any way . 9 
Have one group conserving foreign culture. . . . . 6 
Have two to five groups conserving foreign culture . 8 
5 


Have six to ten groups conserving foreign culture . 
Have over ten groups conserving foreign culture. . . 2 


More and more we are getting away from the self-satisfied 
and blind one hundred per cent Americanism chatter and are real- 
izing that America loses one of the chief contributions of her 
alien residents if she makes no recognition of immigrant back- 
grounds. An appreciation of the arts of each nation as sympa- 
thetic as this interpretation of Polish music needs to be cultivated 
in the Neighborhood House: 


“The glory of Poland is in its music. It is just as necessary to 
the daily life. . . of the peddler. . . the goose-girl. . . the wander- 
ing violinist . . . the tailor. . . the blacksmith . . . and the chil- 
dren . . . as is the bread that they eat... . In it is the history, now 
gay, now tragic, of a race that has faced every misfortune that human 
beings can suffer. . . . There are certain emotions in the Slav race 
which can be expressed. only in the minor chords. . . . The minor is 


[ 62 ] 


not necessarily a soft sadness—it may express a reverie of wonder, a 
wonder at the immensity of things. . . . Civilization may in time 
do away with the simpler arts of men, but the spirit of these songs 
will live on, heritages of the Polish nation;?* 


An equally sympathetic understanding of the arts of what- 
ever race or nationality she meets must be in the equipment of 
each Neighborhood House worker. Otherwise we cannot hope 
for a perfect blending of the finest new and old world traits. 

Some of the unique features of Neighborhood Houses are 
worth mentioning. For example, The Russian and Greek language 
schools organized by nationality workers at Sea and Land House 
have been a potent factor in reaching Greek and Russian parents 
enlisting their interest in Russian and Greek Community Eve- 
nings, where foreign lecturers, musicians, and entertainers have 
taken part. Asa result, Sea and Land has become in a small way 
a center of Russian and Greek life on the lower East Side. 


The Music Department of Howell Neighborhood House 
with its sympathetic use of the musical heritage of the Slav, 
brings joy to many a homesick Czech parent. Czech children 
are learning to know and love the songs their parents sang on 
the village green in the homeland. The department presents 
a rare collection of charming Slavic folk songs, sung by people 
who love them, to American audiences from time to time and 
thereby conserves one of the choicest gifts the Slav brings to 
America. The Clinic at Dodge House, conducted in cooperation 
with Harper Hospital and the Community Chest of Detroit of- 
fers medical and surgical care to a district surprisingly unequipped 
in this respect. The Labor Temple School, “an effort to provide 
culture for those otherwise deprived of it,” conducts a wide range 
of lectures and term courses for working people. The winter 
curriculum listed lectures on psychology, economics, science, mu- 
sic and, the history of art, drama, and literature. 

Some houses fostered such activities in their infancy as a 
separate department and later launched them into the world as 
independent enterprises. In some cases, after demonstrating the 
value of specific projects, other agencies better fitted to support 
and direct them were encouraged to take them over. There are 
playgrounds, social settlements, a music settlement, a diet kitchen, 
health centers, district nursing, public school, citizenship classes, 
and a Jaw and order association which can trace their beginnings 


*E. P. Kelley. Folk Songs of Many Peoples. 
[ 63 ] 


to a Neighborhood House. Olivet Institute in Chicago, one of 
the oldest Neighborhood Houses in the country, has a varied 
offspring—two playgrounds, a tuberculosis sanitarium, and a home 
for orphans, convalescents, and the aged. 

The summer program in the Neighborhood House consists of 
daily vacation school, hikes, and outings, and, as soon as the 
Center can afford it, a summer camp or home in the country 1s 
added to the equipment. In large cities houses have also co- 
operated with “Fresh Air Funds” which send children to private 
homes. Use is also made of Scout and Christian Association 
Camps. Several presbyteries have one camp owned by presby- 
tery and used by all affiliated institutions. As no visits were made 
while summer work was in progress, this report will not dwell 
on or include recommendations for summer work, except to sug- 
gest that camp councillors and directors keep in touch with the 
Camp Directors Association and its Spring training camps. 

It is well known that in every Center some group activities 
are much more closely connected with the house than others. 
Some merely use the Neighborhood House for a convenient 
meeting place; a few are directed by outside organizations; others 
have complete independence but are keenly interested in the 
entire program of the center; other groups, especially children’s 
are planned by the Neighborhood House staff. Just what rela- 
tionship 960 groups studied had to the Neighborhood House is 
revealed in the following statistics: 

Organization Having Primary Administrative 


Responsibility for Group Number 
‘Phe!:Group »' Directs \ Teselfi (Sc healed nena meen a 
‘Lhe Neighborhood ‘House Directs’ a1, sue ile iean vena ea 
The: Community Directs 0/1 (40) iu ovat aaethn, ae ema 
The Lown or City (Directs "ai. 7. Ware Ale Cia nnn aa 
Local Churches»; Direct: (Siti suite y aint we teks ence ty Ne nA 
Other Arencies Direction cts lcm OWES Nn WS 


The 103 listed “group directs itself” were self-governing. 
They are older young people’s clubs, nationality lodges, churches, 
foreign choral societies, and adult clubs which meet at the Neigh- 
borhood House, but are independent of its direction, as long as 
they maintain law and order. These groups frequently came 
under the influence of the Center, knew the staff well, and often 
made a real contribution to the house. A Serbian Choral Society 
has met at one Center regularly for ten years to practice for its 


[ 64 ] 


concerts. The singers, many of them near neighbors, have come 
to know the staff intimately, understand the spirit of the house, 
and express their appreciation constantly in many ways. At 
Christmas time the Society has always made a generous gift to 
the house. 


Out of the 760 groups administered by the Neighborhood 
House, 41 were jointly administered, in cooperation with other 
organizations; 21 were directed by organizations of the commu- 
nity; 36 by the city—for example, the Board of Health directed 
city clinics, the Board of Education supervised citizenship classes; 
For instance, a music school partially supported and administered 
by the Chromatic Society of the city, was placed under the head- 
ing “other agencies direct.” These figures, show that Neighbor- 
hood Houses maintain supervision and direction of most activities 
meeting in their buildings. Where the Neighborhood House is 
not primarily responsible for the direction of the group, hos- 
pitality, friendly interest and cooperation of the staff has won 
many friends for the Neighborhood House out of the group. 


An analysis of group activities by age revealed that the largest 
number of activities (Chart 10) reached the intermediate 
age. The one hundred and seventy-two children’s groups in- 
cluded clubs and classes ranging from Primary to Intermediate 
age, not highly graded by ages. These are not included in the 
_ pictorial bars of the chart. Also the sixteen groups composed of 
Seniors and Adults were not represented on the chart. 


We may also conclude that so far the Neighborhood House 
has made its chief approach through the children of the immi- 
grant community. 


Eighteen houses had kindergarten groups. When the public 
school provides adequate kindergarten training in the district, 
this is not necessary but there are still many Boards of Education 
which have not met this need. If children are cared for in 
a public school kindergarten, a game and story hour with simple 
dramatizations has proved one of the most popular types of activi- 
ties after school hours. Children who have attended a Center ever 
since kindergarten age have absorbed the spirit of the house grad- 
ually and make dependable and valuable older club members. 
With few exceptions, groups were graded as closely as leadership 
and space permited. The finer the subdivision, the better provided 
an esprit de corps is not sacrificed by having the group too small. 


[ 65 ] 


CuHart 10 


OG 
Stated Activities 
byAge Groups | 


Thirty Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses 


Inter 
mediate 


D6 Ae y LGe ae iy the Berea) ee 


*172 Other Children’s groups: mixed ages. 
16 Senior and Adutit: mixed 


This chart shows the age groups which the Neighborhood Houses are 
reaching through stated activities, i.e., out of 990 stated activities checked, 
26 are for kindergarten age only. The 172 children’s groups; mixed 
ages usually were ungraded and so were not included in the above. 





[ 66 ] 


“The task of religious education is to give the child an actual 
religious eperience at each stage in his development.”* 


Like the non-sectarian settlement, the adult work in the 
Neighborhood House is weak. So far the foreign language 
church has proved a more successful approach than the Neigh- 
borhood House. The immigrant parent is difficult to reach. Usu- 
ally there is a language barrier, which is soon broken down in the 
case of children who attend public schools. The women stay close 
to their homes, often send the children “out to buy,” and almost 
never go off their own block, and so seldom hear English spoken. 
The men have to learn English, if they wish to secure any 
but unskilled work. But English, picked up around the wharves 
or in the mill, is usually distorted and has so much of the mother 
tongue grafted into it, that it is not a very satisfactory connecting 
link. Then, too, warnings, he has received from friends in the 
old country, often make the new immigrant wary of American 
ways and institutions for some time after his arrival. A third 
reason, for this failure to reach the adult immigrant, is that not 
enough time and thought have been given to planning activities, 
which are suited to “grown up” interests. There has been too 
little utilization of the immigrant’s background as a starting point. 
Often the immigrant has been treated too much like a child, and 
occasionally the immigrant himself has considered the Neignbor 
hood House simply a combination play house and school for his 
children, not realizing that he could make a real contribution to 
its life and that it, in turn, could serve his interests. 


Some of the most successful adult groups meeting at the 
Neighborhood House were entirely managed by the groups 
themselves. At Gary, Italian and Hungarian Lodges held regu- 
lar meetings at the Neighborhood Houses, a Serbian Choral So- 
ciety has met for years at Christopher House. At Garibaldi 
Institute, a large group of young Italian men, originally organ- 
ized outside the Center, met at the Institute regularly and wel- 
comed the advisory leadership of one of the staff. 


*Neighborhood House Conference Proceedings. Miss Faye Klyver—Opportunities 
for Religious Education in Group Activities. 


[ 67 | 


VISITING 


THE Neighborhood House functions in three ways—commu- 

nity cooperation and organization, discussed briefly in an 
earlier section; group activities, the major emphasis just considered 
in some detail; and lastly “family visiting,” “personal service,” 
“calling” or whatever the work with families or individuals is 
called. 

In this realm the Neighborhood House has one of its greatest 
chances to be effective. Some realized this from the first; others 
have been too harried by the daily round of clubs and classes; too 
swamped by the ever multiplying details of administration, 
money raising and emergency calls, to develop any technique for 
this service to its members. A brief summary of how the houses 
are carrying on this form of work will be enlightening, though 
not especially encouraging. 


It was found that five Centers had no plan for visiting, calls 
being made when a crisis in the home of a club member demand- 
ed; in one Center visits are made by the Russian pastor and staft 
worker; another Center divided the list of families among the 
staff according to residence or nationality, the staff member was 
then held responsible for these families’ spiritual, mental and 
physical welfare; three Centers conducted an annual or semi-an- 
nual canvass of all members, following up the problems then dis- 
covered; three Centers had the leaders of each department call on 
the members, that is, the girls’ worker called on the girls or the 
kindergartner called in the homes of kindergarten children; thir- 
teen Centers assigned the major responsibilitv for visiting to ove 
person on the staff, she being also held responsible for any case 
work done. This visitor was frequently assisted by the girls’ 
worker or kindergartner. Occasionally the head worker did all 
the home visiting. Kindergarten mothers are usually called upon 
quite regularly, for this is considered one of the kindergartner’s 
duties. It will be seen from this summary that no one method 
has been evolved. 


The largest number had adopted the method of having some 
[ 68 J 


one person in charge of the visiting. One Center has em- 
ployed a trained case worker in this position. The danger of hav- 
ing one person in charge is that her knowledge and understanding 
of a family situation may not be passed on to the boys’ worker, 
kindergartner, head resident, or other staff member also con- 
cerned with the family’s problems. Within the house, some 
method of sharing information and having concerted action by the 
staff in meeting a family problem must be assured. On the other 
hand, having one person in charge of this department has distinct 
advantages. For example, it prevents two or three workers’ run- 
ning in and out of a maladjusted home bringing conflicting ad- 
vice to a distraught, confused parent. It also may be a satistac- 
tory means of developing cooperation with local social agencies. 
Having one staff member act as “liaison officer” between the Cen- 
ter and other agencies in the district, has often made possible a 
more unified approach to the needs of the neighborhood, every 
Neighborhood House requires at least one staff member with a 
thorough understanding of the case work method. “It would be 
ideal, if a trained case worker could be employed by each N eigh- 
borhood House to recognize family problems and sift out those 
maladjustments to life so serious as to require the services of a 
family agency.”* Where this is not possible, one member of the 
staff at least should make it her business to obtain a continuing 
and growing appreciation and understanding of case work through 
contacts with case workers, membership on district case committees 
and reading, such as Carl de Schweintz’s “The Art of Helping 
People Out of Trouble,” Miss Richmond’s “What is Social Case 
Work,” and the magazine, “The Family.” 

Furthermore, if a Center is to attempt the delicate task of 
readjusting and developing human lives, some system of record- 
ing these attempts must be found, otherwise the family or indi- 
vidual will become the victim of oft repeated experiments and 
the endless questionings of a succession of workers. Suggestions 
for a family card have been given, and a sample form will be 
found on another page. A brief history might advisably be kept 
for families requiring special care and adjustments. Such a his- 
tory would contain facts about the makeup of the family, address, 
nationality, church connection, employment, specific health con- 
ditions, agencies interested, a brief summary of problems pre- 


*Helen Hanchette: The Modern View in Family Social Work—Proceedings of 
Conference on Neighborhood House Work. 


[ 69 ] 


sented, a chronological statement of calls, their purpose and re- 
sult, and at regular intervals a summing up of what has been ac- 
complished, and a statement of a future plan for the family. 


It is worth noting that the Neighborhood House does not 
consider itself a relief agency, that is, a dispenser of food, cloth- 
ing and money, and with few exceptions relief is not a part of 
Neighborhood House programs. This is wise. For where relief 
is necessary, the need arises not as the result of a sudden emerg- 
ency but with many and long standing causes. Therefore, the 
Neighborhood House is sensible when it puts to work in these 
homes the technique of the family case work society. 


Possibly a word of caution should be given in this respect. It 
was found that some workers still considered material relief the 
primary function of the family case work agency and that that 
need was usually the one basis for seeking such an agency’s co- 
operation. - Relief is not the sole aim and purpose of family 
societies. In Cleveland but one-fifth to one-fourth of the fami- 
lies entrusted to the care of the Associated Charities receive mate- 
rial aid. A large district of the New York Charity Organization 
Society reported that only 33 per cent of the families under care 
in a given month received financial assistance. The family agency 
knows the resources of the community intimately and is fitted to 
offer guidance in health, behavior, unemployment, marital, psy- 
chiatric, illegitimacy, guardianship, and similar problems that may 
arise in any home. To seek the family agency’s cooperation only 
for relief is to disregard one of the most influential and useful 
sources of information and skilled leadership in the community. 


Necessity for knowing more about the individual environment 
of its club and class members is another teason for the N eighbor- 
hood House to give serious consideration to its contacts in the 
home. Effective group work can never be accomplished if the 
leader is dealing with individuals with little regard for their en- 
vironment. One boys’ worker, when asked about some of his 
club members, remarked, “Oh! I know my boys in the gym, 
that’s enough! I take it for granted that their home influences 
are bad.” Anyone who has known the strong, fine influences for 
family solidarity, good citizenship, thrift, and so on in many im- 
migrant homes will rise in protest. On the contrary club leaders 
were found building their programs on the valuable contributions 
of the boy’s home, school, and “gang.” To do this means study- 
ing the child in all his relationships, home, school, church, club 


[ 70 ] 


and playground. Subjecting an individual to wholesome influ- 
ences without a thorough understanding of his problems, even 
beyond his own understanding of them, will not help, in the most 
intelligent way, to strenghten his good traits and eliminate his 
weak ones. A thorough understanding of the child’s environ- 
ment often reveals quite a different child from the one observed 
in a class. A program in which the parents are cooperating will be 
more far reaching and lasting. The deep seated causes for ab- 
normalities and delinquency are often discovered in a visit to the 
home or in a chat with the school teachers. Unfortunately too 
many club leaders are not in a position either from lack of train- 
ing or time to delve into this kind of fact. Therefore, the Neigh- 
borhood House which provides a family visitor who is the go-be- 
tween for social agencies, the school, the home, and the other 
workers of the Center, can render a peculiarly effective service. 
In this field of service lies one of the greatest opportunities 
of the Neighborhood House. Many individuals not taking part 
in group activities may be reached; many families whose straits 
are not yet dire enough to demand the attention of the family 
social work society may be helped to adjust their difficulties; the 
neighborhood’s confidence in a Center gives it an entre to many 
acute family situations; group work without a thorough under- 
standing of the background of each individual making up the 
group can never achieve its fullest effectiveness. For these reas- 
ons the Neighborhood House should make family visiting a more 
definite and carefully thought-out part of its program, and in so 
doing keep in mind the technique that family social work 
societies have evolved from long and conscientiously recorded 
experience in this fundamental phase of the “art of helping.” 


STAFF 


B ESIDES the opportunity to render valuable and necessary 
service,” Mrs. Florence Taylor writes, “these are the points 
the prospective worker takes into consideration when deciding 
what field of work she will enter. She wishes to know what special 
training is required, what experience if any is necssary, whether 
the hours of work allow sufficient time for rest, recreation and 
study, whether the salaries are large enough to permit freedom 


Rae 


from constant financial worry, and whether there is opportunity 
for properly prepared workers to advance to positions of greater. 
responsibility if they prove themselves capable of handling 
them.”* 

These same questions are also being asked by those engaging 
or training prospective workers. The experience of the thirty 
Neighborhood Houses summarized here may give some light on 
this important aspect of the Neighborhood House movement. 

The staff of a Neighborhood House may be divided into 
three groups, according to basis of employment: full time work- 
ers, part time workers, and volunteers. Most of this report will 
be devoted to full time workers. However, a few conclusions 
and recommendations about part time and volunteer workers 
should be cited. 

The problem of the volunteer, and the word problem is used 
intentionally, for the volunteer has too long been considered a 
problem, bothers every head worker. If the volunteer is a prob- 
lem, it is more often the fault of the staff. Careful supervision, 
a worthwhile job, work suited to the ability and interest of the 
volunteer, increase of responsibility, as he proves capable, and 
the opportunity to feel a vital part in the whole task, will develop 
a splendid volunteer worker. The paid staff can see that this 
training is given. 

Little use of volunteer assistance was revealed in some Cen- 
ters. Others used volunteers extensively. How does one find 
volunteer workers? was an oft repeated question. Therefore a 
study of the sources from which 278 volunteers were secured in 
twelve Centers was made. The results suggest that volunteers are 
not always found, but are cultivated and trained: 


Source of Securing Volunteers Number 
Affiliated Churches or Women’s Societies. . . . . . . 88 
Students an Draining: AN /i//qb Waive in akan ened A eae 70 
Trained Neighborhood House members. . . . . . . 59 
Parger)) Commaninity: Voi Meni esa Orpen anne Himes 
Reacher sa en tian aN LLnL ne: Unie ven Amn Naa 
Friends) of) ithe iStatk i) gui idle? sia 


The 59 trained members of the Neighborhood Houses are 
older young people, and men and women of the community, who 
have grown up in the clubs and classes and received their train- 
ing from staff members. A. nineteen year old Italian Scout 


*Taylor: Survey of Standards for Women Workers, page 12. 
Paes 


leader derives much more from that experience than from play- 
ing forward on a basket ball team. A young Czech woman will 
learn more teaching a Sunday school class of primary children 
than she will as a member of a choral club, that is, of course, if 
adequate supervision is provided. Even though the task is not 
quite so perfectly performed as it might be by an “uptown” vol- 
unteer, the leader is “learning by doing.” One of the greatest 
contributions a Neighborhood House can make to a community 
is by training local leadership in this way. 


The use of a supervised volunteer staff permits the expansion 
of a Neighborhood House program. One worker can meet only 
a limited number of clubs a week. It is a physical impossibility 
to lead two clubs at once. A director, however, can supervise 
several clubs led by volunteers in one evening and arrange con- 
ferences with the leaders during the week. An increase in the 
number of clubs supervised is possible under such a plan and the 
limits of a program are less rigid than when the girls’ worker 
for instance, tries to lead clubs herself. 


Unless an unheard of expansion in budgets occurs, Neighbor- 
hood Houses will always depend on volunteer leadership. This 
need not be deplored. The volunteer brings a rich outside ex- 
perience to her task; has leisure time for supplementing her work 
at the Center, is an understanding interpreter of the Neighbor- 
hood House program to a wide circle of friends and contributors; 
makes a truly intelligent Board member. In short, the volunteer 
functions in many ways that the paid worker never could and is 
to be sought as an integral part of every Neighborhood House 
staff. 


The second group, part time workers, represented a great 
variety of bases of employment and duties. Some part time 
workers, especially those in residence, often did full time work. 
Others only came to the house a period a week—to teach a dress- 
making class or a music lesson. Many were employed for a 
definite number of hours to direct the work of a specific depart- 
ment. The director of physical education would frequently be 
in this group. For these reasons no generalizations as to their 
salaries, vacations or education and experience are of value. It 
is worth noting, however, that more and more Neighborhood 
Houses are hiring experts to give club groups technical training 
in specific lines. A girls’ worker cannot be a skilled club organ- 
izer and an equally good teacher of dressmaking, millinery, cook- 


[ 73 ] 


ing, dramatics and physical education. Therefore, many houses 
expect the girls’ club leader to organize and promote a club and 
develop the personal contacts with the members, employing a 
part time worker for a specific purpose. For example, one club 
had first a dressmaking teacher for eight weeks, and then a physi- 
cal education teacher, then a dramatics coach for another eight 
weeks to guide the club in specific projects—making dresses, a 
health demonstration, and a play. Results warrant the adoption 
of this principle. It has been used effectively in boys’ and adults? 
clubs also. This same plan may be used successfully with vol- 
unteers particularly gifted in one line. As with volunteers, the 
use of part time specialists permits, at a low cost, expansion of 
the number and variety of activities, carried by a relatively small 
full time staff. 


The third group of workers, and the one on which the success 
of the Neighborhood House depends, is the full time workers. 
Chart 11 shows the types of positions in Neighborhood Houses, 
by title of position and sex. While certain kinds of positions. 
such as kindergartner, visitor, assistant directors, this position 
usually included duties of head resident, are distinctly a woman’s 
field, it is unfortunate that more men are not employed and that 
salaries are inadequate to attract them. The small number of 
boys’ workers over against girls’ workers, though all Centers have 
boys’ and girls’ work, is a real handicap in the boys’ departments. 


Any classification of positions by titles is somewhat arbitrary. 
There is too little relationship between titles and duties. In one 
Center a director of girls’ work is in charge of the girls’ depart- 
ment, as the title would suggest. In another, she supervises all 
girls’ clubs and classes, leading several herself, and, in addition, 
directs the employment bureau, “keeps the Neighborhood House 
books,” teaches Sunday school, has general oversight of kinder- 
garten and nursery, and visits in the homes. Another worker, 
listed as religious education director, is superintendent of the 
Sunday school, acts as head resident, which includes hostess duties 
and full responsibility for housekeeping in the residence, directs 
girls’ activities, visits in the homes, and is the organist. A com- 
monly accepted terminology for Neighborhood House staff posi- 
tions would save confusion for executives, for those seeking posi- 
tions, and for training schools. 


The survey sought to discover what methods and agencies 
functioned to provide the personnel directing Neighborhood 


ia 


a 


Houses. Conclusions drawn from the following figures show that 
too many workers are still securing their positions in a haphazard 
way. Of eighty-five full time workers less than one-half (39, or 
46 per cent) were put in touch with their work by organizations 
making some attempt at scientific placement. Of these, 6 secured 
their positions through placement bureaus, 7 through the Board 
of National Missions, 14 through the Church Extension Com- 
mittees of the local presbytery, and 12 were recommended by 
training schools, seminaries or colleges. The majority (46, or 54 
per cent), “heard” of their positions through friends, relatives, 
local ministers, or made personal application to the Centers for 
employment. — 


The lack of any central clearing bureau for church positions 
1s proving a serious handicap in securing the best available leader- 
ship. Inability to get at a vacancy is discouraging to the worker 
and sends her to other fields. Under the present conditions a 
girls’ worker in search of a position and not bound to a particular 
locality may communicate with any one of nine presbyterial or 
synodical executives, the Board of National Missions, or as many 
directors as there are Neighborhood Houses. The resulting waste 
of time and correspondence is obvious and meanwhile the best 
leadership is often attracted to other organizations, such as the 
Young Women’s Christian Association and the American Asso- 
ciation of Social Workers, whose placement methods are more 
effective. 


A central placement bureau for lay workers, with nationwide 
information about vacancies, in touch with the personnel of 
church workers, in cooperation with all departments of the Board 
of National Missions and local executives of synods and pres- 
byteries, would help to find the position best suited to a worker 
and the worker best suited to the position, not only in Neighbor- 
hood Houses but in all places where lay workers are employed, 
whether they be community workers, church visitors, religious 
education directors, or church secretaries. 


An analysis of eighty-three workers by age groups (Chart 
12) showed that the Neighborhood House employed a group of 
young workers. Out of a total of 83, 13 were under twenty-five; 
51 (61 per cent) were under thirty-five; 71 (85 per cent) were 
under forty-five. In the Protestant Episcopal church, the largest 
group of women workers was between the ages of forty-five and 


ay a 


CuHarrt 11 


s) 
es 
Y 

5 

= 

6 
g 

CS? 
Y 

& 
= 


5 
i) 
YU 
x 
ae 


82 Full 


Thirty Presbyterian Neighborhood. Houses 


| 


149) 


—_ 


<e 
~s 
3 


Itt 


by 


nd women in 


itions for men a 
Neighborhood Houses studied. 


d types of full time staff positions 
age of posi 


indicates the number an 
e total number of positions in 


chart in 
; e circle shows the percent 





[ 76 |] 


fifty-five years. The very nature of Neighborhood House work 
requires youth. The emphasis on boys’ and girls’ groups and 
young people’s work require enthusiasm and activity. Yet this 
fact does have real bearing upon the supervision and direction 
within a Neighborhood House. The young worker is inevitably 
inexperienced. Wise mature leadership should be insured in each 
Center, and the less experienced workers encouraged to increase 
their professional skill and knowledge while employed. 


Opportunity for further training while employed was an- 
other problem examined. Questions workers ask are, ‘‘What 
opportunity will I have to increase my knowledge and profes- 
sional training while employed?” ‘What will keep me from 
growing stale on the job?” This is equally important from 
the Center’s point of view. University extension courses, Schools 
of Social Work, special lectures for social workers and religious 
educators, afford an excellent opportunity for the worker in the 
large city to “keep brushed up on her subject.” Yet, it was 
found that comparatively few houses, only 6 out of 30, made 
a point of giving their staff opportunity for further education. 
Few kinds of work require more constant giving of all that one 
has. Replenishment is essential. Provision for study and con- 
ference with those facing similar problems should be planned 
for each staff member. 


Chicago Church Extension Committee has met the need of 
conferences well through staff meetings held monthly, when reg- 
ular attendance is expected of all workers. Hearing outside 
speakers, fellowship with other social-religious workers of pres- 
bytery, and seeing one’s job from afar, have been very valuable. 
Other cities and presbyteries could advantageously adopt such a 
plan. In localities where the number of workers does not war- 
rant conferences, the staff meeting in each Center could be a par- 
tial substitute. 


The fact that many workers are young means that they have 
had little experience. Since, to date, only a limited amount of 
training, other than “learning by his own mistakes” is given the 
worker in the Center, the consideration of his previous education 
and exeprience is especially significant. The previous experience 
of Neighborhood House staffs is summarized in Chart 13. That 
many have secured this experience in other fields not closely allied, 
like religious or social work is revealed in Tables III, IV, and V. 
The preponderance of workers who come into Neighborhood 


[77 ] 


Cuart 12 


Age Groups 
83 Full-time Staff Workers 


Thirty Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses 


45-54 Over 55 


The number of full-time Staff Workers arranged by age groups. 





[ 78 J 


Houses with little or no previous experience in social or religious 
work, shows the need of making every Neighborhood House a 
training center. Young, inexperienced workers need constant 
guidance and suggestion. Otherwise, the people of the commu- 
nity will be subjected to an experimentation unfair to them and 
unworthy of the purpose of the Neighborhood House. 


Since the Centers are in foreign communities, prospective 
workers inquire, “Is it necessary to know an immigrant language?” 
In a total of 92 workers but 18 spoke the language of any one 
of the immigrant groups reached. The consensus of opinion was 
that foreign language equipment was not essential, though a great 
asset. Furthermore, directors believed that a nationality worker 
must have a rare mingling of the American and foreign viewpoint 
to make a real contribution in interpreting the immigrants to the 
Center and Christianity in America to the foreign-born and their 
children. 


TaBLeE III 

Previous EXPERIENCE OF 80 Starr MEMBERS IN RELIGIOUS 
Work 

One year 


but less 
than two 


Classification of Workers 





Directors eas ucten by. dyie it 3 
Assistant Directors - 
Girls Workers: )\ i324). _ 
Boysawiorkersa ss :.54) ~ 
DCKetariess cn me t | 1 
Kindergartners ....... - 
ALU Oth erat .tiy eo | 
Total 5 





TasBLe IV 


Previous EXPERIENCE OF 83 Starr MEMBERS IN SOCIAL 
WorK 






























One year sn of 
Classification of Workers but less ie Wai Total 
than two 
five 
Directors ieee as nae 21 
Assistant Directors . 6 
Girls Workers ........ 12 
BOvS IW orkers Pigs Waa 6 
Secretaries s/t) 8. Hue 9 
Kindergartners ...... 7 
g 
au 


PAW REY Ord alc\opuedteuneu alin dit pula: 


Total 














TABLE V 
Previous EXPERIENCE OF 79 Starr MEMBERS IN OTHER 
Work 
Glasihcation of Workers ate sai ie jaa aie bs Pipe aes 
ROA bacsatensd WAR PIR Pt 

Dir ectorsh i iki) einai 6 4 6 5 21 
Assistant Directors .... 5 _ 1 6 
Girls (Workers)... 3 _ 6 2 11 
Boys) Workers qi I _ — 3 4 
DECreta Meshal na alii aR 5 Ly - 4 10 
Kindergartners ...... 3 I 1 2 7 
ALDH th ere ransctniemnie a 12 1 3 4 20 
Total $f) ty We We) Fs: 21 79 





Special effort was made to discover what types of education 
staff workers had. The analysis of the training of twenty-four 
directors showed: 


Education | No. of Directors 


College and professional school education. . . . . I1 
Professional or denominational school without full 
college course . 7 
olepeun lu ammmcn tat Mah \ ely 1 
Normalischooionlyraitga its at 6M lily cr pepricon tary Wed ie 2 
High School but not full college or normal course . 3 


That few are particularly trained for this field of service is 
shown in Chart 14, Education of 92 full time Staff Workers; 
21 had had less than a full college course, and 10 more with col- 
lege or normal school education only, made a total of 31 who 
had had no specialized training for Neighborhood House work. 
Add to this the fact that of the 39 who had attended special 
schools for training, 4 were secretaries from business schools, 5 
kindergarten school graduates, and 20 denominational or mission- 
ary training school students. This makes a total of 29 more who 
received no special preparation for this type of work. These lat- 
ter schools train primarily for church work. Their curricula are 
very meagre in community organization, family case work, recre- 
ational leadership and methods of religious education. The 
Neighborhood House worker needs all these. In the second largest 
group of 22 having a college education plus professional school 
or graduate study, there were 9 seminary students (they also 
had received little training peculiarly designed for Neighbor- 
hood House work); 7 had attended business schools; 6 had at- 
tended schools of social work; 6 had pursued graduate study in 
religious education. Thus, we may conclude that only 12 out of 
92 workers had received an education, which was primarily de- 
signed to help a worker determine or create a Neighborhood 
House philosophy and program. 


One immediately asks, Are the training schools and seminaries 
trying to adapt their curricula to prepare workers for this kind 
of Christian service? Where do executives seek new workers? 
Is it the task of the Neighborhood House to train its own work- 
ers? Is the Neighborhood House to be a laboratory for experi- 
ment? Should not the church strengthen its connections with 
the increasing number of university departments of religious edu- 
cation and schools of social work, use more of their graduates, 


[ 81 ] 


CuHart 13 


Previous 


Professional Experience 
of Full-time Staff Workers 


29 Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses 


34 
have had 
one year 
of more expe- 
rience in religious 
work 


24+ 
have had 
one year or 
more experience 
in secular 
social work 


44 
have had 
one year or 
more experience 


1Tl : 
Other fields 


This chart indicates the number of full-time staff workers, in relationship 
to the total number reported, which had had one year or more previous 
experience, It also indicates the type of previous experience workers have 


had. 





[ 82 ] 


and insist that these educational institutions see the need of train- 
ing students for social religious work? 


A careful study of the salaries of all full time workers was 
made but tabulations of the results are not especially enlighten- 
ing without many modifications and restatements of salaries to 
include the value of room, or room and board, where these are 
given as a part of the salary. Accurate comparisons were there- 
fore not attempted. Furthermore, as has already been pointed 
out, the worker’s title connoted little in defining her responsibility 
and duty. Therefore, a comparison of salaries by types of posi- 
tion was not feasible. 


A few general statements, however, are worth noting. The 
wide variation in salaries for similar types of work is amazing. 
Directors’ salaries range from $1,200 with room and board to 
$4,200 without room and board; assistant directors from $1,200 
with room to $1,800 with room and board; boys’ workers from 
$1,200 and room to $2,800; and girls’ workers from $1,180 to 
$2,800 without living. Sex is always a factor which outweighs 
education and experience in determining remuneration. More- 
over, salaries are scaled according to the paying ability of the in- 
dividual budget rather than the education, experience and ability 
of the worker, or the difficulty and responsibility of the service 
undertaken. 


There is no doubt that this failure to reward experience and 
training is discouraging to the young worker, contemplating fur- 
ther or specialized study, and to the older worker, who has a 
right to expect some recognition for her years of experience. One 
Neighborhood House director who has been at a Center for over 
twelve years, receives a salary of only $150 a month, though she 
directs a large staff, has a splendidly organized institution and, 
in short, is one of the foremost Neighborhood House directors 
in the country. Another young woman, graduated from a large 
woman’s college, taught a year, then took a two year course receiv- 
ing her Master of Arts degree in religious education from a recog- 
nized university, and had two years of experience as student in 
training. In a few months, she was employed as religious educa- 
tion director and girls’ worker for $1,200 and room; within the 
month, the Center also employed a young woman as “visitor” at 
the same salary rate, though she had had no experience and only 
high school education plus one year in a missionary training school, 
and had always lived in a small rural town where she had never 


[ 83 ] 


CuHart 14 


Education 
of 92 Full-time Staff Workers 


Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses 


oF LOT WSS Melba SIR gOS hy blr punky, Wi heat 


Less High —HighSchool Special Normal College Collebe and 
than School andPart Schoots School Only Pi ional 
High Only canes of without college Only School or 


Schoo ormal of normal Graduate study 


18 only speak immigrant languages 


The educational background of staff workers is shown here. ‘Special 
Schools” included denominational training, kindergarten and_ business 
schools. Professional Schools and graduate study included theological 
seminaries, graduate departments of universities and schools of social work. 





[ 84 ] 


encountered the problems of a congested foreign district. The 
short-sightedness of such a policy is apparent. 


The fact that almost no Centers hold out any hope of financial 
reward to their workers for continued service or “growth on the 
job,” may be deduced from the following statement. Of seventy- 
four full time workers in twenty-eight Neighborhood Houses, 
only 8 (11 per cent) had any definite promise of a salary in- 
crease or any reason to anticipate one—it made no difference how 
long or how worthwhile the service rendered. The effect of this 
is bad in two respects: First, it holds out no incentive from a 
remunerative point of view to a young worker, second, it is dis- 
couraging to a worker who has given years of devoted service 
and has gained a background of rich experience “on her job” to 
see a young, fairly inexperienced worker commence on an equal 
salary. 

A scale of regular increases up to a regular maximum salary 
for a specific position in a Center would be an incentive to the 
individual worker, have a desirable effect on the general morale 
of the staff, and decrease labor turnover. 


Comparisons of the salaries in an average city church and 
Neighborhood House were made in one instance. A church and a 
Neighborhood House operating on approximately the same budg- 
ets, $18,000-$20,000, were selected. The church item for staff 
was $8,065 and supported two full time workers, a minister at 

$4,700 per year and an assistant minister at $1,500. The Neigh- 
borhood House salary item was $8,400, but it included five full 
time workers and ime part time workers. The head resident re- 
ceived the highest salary paid, $1,800. The responsibilities and 
achievements of Neighborhood House work are no less, in fact 
if anything they are greater than in many churches. Why is there 
such a wide difference in salaries? 

In this connection a recent statement of the National Federa- 
tion of Settlements is also worth noting: 


The salaries of the headworkers in the established houses range 
from $1,800 to $6,500 a year. This last salary is paid in a community 
chest city where the salaries of executives of a certain grade are 
standardized. ‘The average salary for men as headworkers is now 
ranging between $3,000 and $5,000 and for women between $2,000 
and $4,000. There are a few exceptions from this average. Salaries of 
directors of boys’ work range from $1,800 to $4,000. An average is 
between $2,400 and $3,000. Salaries for associates to the head- 


[ 85 ] 


CuHart 15 


Period of Service 
of 92 Full-time Staff Workers 


At present place of Employment 
Thirty Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses 


aten BS 


Five Ten an 
to to Years 

Ten Fifteen and 

Years Years Over 


The number of staff workers are arranged according to the length of time 
they have been employed in their present positions. 





[ 86 ] 





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[ 87 ] 


CuHartT 16 


Period of Service 
of 92 Full-time Staff Workers 


Present place of Employment 


Thirty Presbyterian Neighborhood Houses 


The black portion of the circle indicates the proportion of ninety-two 
full-time staff workers who have been in their present centers less than 
two years. 





[ 88 ] 


worker, persons of good training and considerable experience, receive 
from $1,200 to $3,000 with an average of $1,800 to $2,400. A large 
number of people who are starting settlement work receive between 
$800 and $1,500. After a year of experience $1,200 to $1,500 


» 
seems to represent the average salary. 


The frequency of staff changes was brought out in Chart 
15. Out of 92 workers, 22 had been in their present place of 
employment less than one year; 19, less than two years; 22, be- 
tween two and five years; 14 between five and ten years; 8, ten 
to fifteen years, and 7 over fifteen years. 

Figures of labor turnover in other Church positions were not 
available. Of 1,064 social workers in 93 mid-west agencies 286 
(27 per cent) had changed positions within the year. In Neigh- 
borhood Houses 22 (24 per cent) changed positions within a year, 
yet this is not a commendable record especially when we add to 
it 19 (21 per cent) more making a total of 41 (45 per cent) who 
had been employed less than two years (see Chart 16). 

The scope of the survey did not include an analysis for causes 
of labor turnover. Is it due to low salaries? Indefinite and over- 
long hours? Lack of supervision? Extreme pressure of work? 
A desire to enter other fields of service? Discouragement of 
idealistic young workers? Lack of opportunity for advancement? 
These are questions that every Neighborhood House must an- 
swer for itself. 

Definite hours of work were reported for only 50 out of 88 
workers (see Table VI). All workers except kindergartners and 
secretaries, employed only for their specific tasks, had difficulty 
in estimating hours of work. More than one worker reported 
over seventy hours a week, one director estimated an eighty-four 
hour week, and many were literally working from “morn till 
midnight.” Twenty-four of the group reported were giving 
more than a forty-eight hour week. The majority of those who 
could not define their hours thought they were working over a 
forty-eight hour week. Thus only 26 were working forty-eight 
hours a week or less—reasonable working hours. 

It will be noted that the largest group, having clearly defined 
time schedules within a forty-eight hour week, were secretaries. 
This is probably because the business world has set standards for 
a working day, and the Neighborhood House has had to adopt 
these standards, when employing secretarial assistance. 

Of course it is true, as one director pointed out, that much of 


e570) 


the work in a Neighborhood House is “a part of living.” Chaper- 
oning a party, coaching a basket-ball team, teaching a Sunday 
school class is not the same strain that seven or eight hours of 
concentrated office work might be. Nevertheless, long hours, due 
to a loyal spirit of service, lack of organization, understafling of 
Centers, and residence—“in the midst of one’s job”—are a cause 
for deep concern. 

My candle burns at both ends; 

It will not last the night; 

But oh, my foes, and oh, my friends, 

It gives a lovely light.* 

Too many workers yield to this temptation. Their candles 
will not last the night. Physical breakdown will inevitably be 
the result or “growing stale on the job” is likely to follow. 
“Feeling well” is essential to carrying on any task to the best of 
one’s ability, but where work is almost entirely with other people, 
the leader must be “physically on tip-toe.” 


If the Church stands for reasonable working hours in indus- 
try, should it not be consistent and organize its own enterprises 
to provide leisure, rest, and opportunity for refreshment of body 
and soul for its own workers? That this can be done has already 
been proved in one or two Centers where definite efforts have 
resulted in organized schedules. Shorter hours of concentrated 
work accomplish far more than dragging about indefinitely in a 
semi-fagged state of mind and body. The report showed that 
directors believed in this theory for their workers but had not 
yet been able to put it into practice for themselves. It 1s important 
that each worker’s time should be organized in a definite schedule, 
related to an inclusive house schedule, and clearly understood by 
every member of the staff. 

Vacation standards in all Centers are practically uniform. One 
house allows but two weeks a year, two houses allow six weeks 
a year to full time workers. All other Centers give a month’s 
vacation annually. One or two very modern Centers have insti- 
tuted the custom of a mid-winter or spring vacation, giving an 
extra week with pay after the Christmas rush is over or just be- 
fore the summer program commences. In the long run, this 1s 
economy. 

Too much attention cannot be given to the quality and re- 


*E. V. Millay: Figs and Thistles. 
[90 J 


sponsibilities of a Neighborhood House staff. In the last analy- 
sis the success of the work depends on the staff in charge. Every 
Center visited clearly reflected the ideals, devotion, loyalty, vision 
wisdom and judgment of the directing staff. A constantly shift- 
ing personnel is a handicap. Reasonable conditions of work; sal- 
aries that allow a “saving wage,” the chance to grow in useful- 
ness; recognition of real skill; the opportunity to work with 
trained people—all these are necessary to attract the worker 
possessing the technical skill and spiritual motive, which combined 
can render a Neighborhood House a growing, living power for 
Christianity. 


CONCLUSION 


PT HERE can be no conclusion to a pamphlet on Neighborhood 

Houses. For the most part the Neighborhood House move- 
ment is still in a period of youth. Change and transformation 
are inevitable. The way of change cannot be arbitrarily pointed 
out. Each community must determine the nature and process 
of development for its own Neighborhood House. A summary 
of experiences has been given. Experience that points to new 
growth. Experience that is unique. Experience that is common 
to many. Experience that is ideal, and experience that is not 
ideal. Gathered together perhaps these will form a basis for 
discerning judgment, intelligent expansion and increased useful- 
ness on the part of those fostering Neighborhood House work. 

To define the way or method a Neighborhood House should 
follow tends toward conformity. ‘Conformity,” says President 
Butler, “is the very antithesis to progress.”” Standards are essential. 
but freedom from the necessity of conforming to any set pro- 
gram, has been one of the underlying principles of the Neighbor- 
hood House, and is one of the chief conditions for further pro- 
gress. 

The tremendous implications of the acceptance of the neighbor- 
hood house as one of the agencies best fitted to provide for the com- 
plete development of the individual through planned experiences are 
that primarily all activities depend upon the particular needs of par- 
ticular groups; that programs therefore change from year to year, 


ett] 


and from neighborhood to neighborhood, and that no set widespread 
program (no matter how neatly printed) designed to turn out uni- 
form machine products, can truly serve as the foundation for real 
character building. These needs, and hence materials and methods 
forever change; these needs forever comprehend race, age, previous 
conditions of freedom and servitude, the changing industrial and 
social life of shifting groups and the larger changing society in which 
individuals are to become adjusted members. 

The entire object of our religious education is to make people 
“not merely do the right things, but to enjoy the right things—not 
merely industrious, but to love industry—not merely learned, but to 
love knowledge—not merely pure, but to love purity—not merely 
just, but to hunger and thirst after justice.” (John Ruskin.)* 


*Neighborhood House Conference Proceedings—Miss Faye Klyver: Religious Edu- 
cation Through Group Activity. 


[ 92 ] 


APPENDIX 


SUGGESTED BupcEet Form For A NEIGHBORHOOD HousE 


A—Expenditures 









; Estimated 
Disbursements ‘ 
disbursements 
Summary LOR the VEae for the year uaB er 
ending March : Difference 
31st. 1925 ending March 
M 31st, 1926 
1. Salaries of Staff .... 
2. Maintenance of 
Eqiipmientien 73504", 
3. Administration ..... 
AACE VILIES OMe so hetiaes ae 
*5, Summer home or 
ATID aM rete. cies deal 
*6. Residence for Staff. . 
Total 
Total Difference 





*These categories are usually kept as separate accounts. 


The budget should be planned “so that he who runs may 
read.” Suggestions for budgets were included under “Finance,” 
(page 35). The blanks printed here are adapted for Neighbor- 
hood House accounting. For a large Center, additional forms 
similar to the “Summary of Budget” blank should be used to 
itemize expenditures under each category. These categories in- 
clude the following accounts: 


93!) 


Salaries for Staff: 


(a) Full Time Workers (list) 


1. Boys’ Worker 
2. Girls’ Worker 
3. Kindergartner 


(b) Part Time Workers (list) 


Maintenance of Equpment: 


l. 


Salaries for Building Em- 
ployees 

(a) Janitors 

(b) Cleaning Women 


2. Incidental Repairs 


3. Rent (if Center is occupy- 


ing rented space) 


. Light 


5. Heat 


. Taxes 


(a) General 
(b) Water 


. Refurnishings 


. Insurance 


(a) Fire 
(b) Employees Liability 
(c) Public Liability 


. Reserve Fund for Perma- 


nent Renovation 


Administration: 


nn PW NY — 


. Conference 

. Publicity 

. Printing 

. Postage 

. Office Supplies 
. Telephone 


10. 


7. Carfare 
8. 
9 


. Interest on Invested Funds 


Auditing and Legal Advice 


Interest on Mortgage or 
Borrowed Funds 


Activities: 


10. 
Li 


. Girls’ Work—under 16 


years 


. Boys’ Work—under 16 


years 


. Church 
. Religious Education 
. Women’s Work 


Men’s Work 


. Kindergarten 
. Mixed Clubs and Classes 
. Music Work 


Health Work 
Special Features 


Summer Home or Camp: 


General 


[ 94 ] 


Additional Funds (1.e., speci- 
fically for summer work) 
Salaries and Wages 

a. Secretarial 

b. Office 

c. Employees 
Rent or Interest on 
Capital Investment 

‘Taxes 

a. General 


b. Water 


Insurance 
a. Fire 
b. Employers’ Liability 
c. Public Liability 


Interest on Borrowed Funds 
or Mortgage 


Repairs 
Equipment (Replacements 
and new equipment) 


Heat 
Light 
Laundry 
Supplies 

a. Office 

b. House 

c. Recreation 

d. First Aid 

e. Education 
Freight and Express 
Publicity and Printing 
Postage 
Telephone 


Carfare 


Residence for Staff: 


Food 

Ice 
Laundry 
Wages 


Rent, Taxes, etc. 


Fuel 


Dining Room and Kitchen 


Food 

Fuel 

Ice 

Sundry Supplies 

Freight 

Repairs and Replacements 
Sundry Expenses 
Registration Fee 


Store 


Supplies 
Sundries 


Freight and Express 


Transportation 


Supplies 

Repairs 

License 

Board and Room 
Repairs 
Furnishings 
Hospitality 
Replacement 
Light 

Room Rent 


A few items should have special explanation. 


(a) The item Reserve Fund for Permanent Renovation, un- 


Li9m J 


der Maintenance of Equipment, is a fund for large repairs not 


needed annually. By making a place for this fund in the budget 
from year to year and carrying a sum over, a heavy expense, such 
as painting the exterior, can be met without an undue strain on 
the budget in any one year. 


(b) Item Conference under Administration will meet the ex- 
penses of sending staff members to conferences on Social and 
Religious Work. The increasing stress laid upon the benefit of 
conferences makes provision for attendance a necessity. 

(c) Clubs or organizations included in Neighborhood House 
activities and partially or entirely self-supporting should include 
their budgets as part of activities or else their audited financial 
statements should be rendered as a separate account at the end of 
the fiscal year. In either case the financial independence of the 
club should be protected. 


[ 96 ] 


SUGGESTED Bupcet Form ror a NEIGHBORHOOD HouskE 


B—Sources 


Anticipated 
income for 
year ending | Income Difference 
March 3 1st, 
1926 


Income for | 

year ending 

March 3 1st, 
1925 


Summary 








Increase | Decrease 








1. Presbyterian 
Oroanizations ais 0, 


Bey Ocal oupport. iit. )./\: 
3. Individual Gifts ...... 
4. Community Chests . 

5. Other Denominations. | 
6 


. Balance from Previous 
GSE Nah LAN ER ee ROR ee aN NBEO 


7. Interest on Capital 
PIVESCIMENE Iya ho sees 





Total |Total 








Income 


otal demert iere sob) Difference 





(See following page) 


Cee] 


The accompanying classifications for sources of income include 
the following items: 


Presbyterian Organizations: 


1. Board of National Missions b. Admission Fees 

2. Presbytery or Church Ex- c. Benefits, Entertainments 
tension Committee at Center 

3. Individual Churches d. House Dues 

4. Synod e. Rents 

5. Presbyterial Society f. Voluntary Contributions 

6. Synodical Society 


Local Commumity: 


a. Local Manufacturers 
b. Local Merchants 
1. Neighborhood House Con- c. Individuals (not included in 


stituency Neighborhood House con- 
a. Club Dues stituency ) 


Local Support: 


The remaining categories are self-explanatory. 


The majority of Neighborhood Houses receive the greater 
part of their incomes undesignated. If the income is designated 
for a special purpose, an accounting of receipts should be kept 
using the categories suggested for distribution of expenditures. 


[ 98 | 


LEADER’S REPORT OF CLUB PERIOD 


Name of Club Leader Date 
No. Enrolled New Members Members Dropped 
No. Present Visitors Reason 

PROGRAM 


(a) Citizenship (Business meeting, House service, Community 
service, etc.) 


(b) Culture (Craft, dramatics, literature, art, club ritual, ini- 
tiation, etc.) 


(c) Social (Games, parties, stories, etc.) 
(d) Interests you have developed. 


(e) Evidences of success or failure of program, etc. (Religious 
expression, service, education, etc.) 


(f) Personal interviews, calls, etc. (Calling slips to be filled 
out when making calls.) 


(g) Special club problems. 
(h) Further suggestions and remarks. 


On reverse side write names and addresses of absent club 
members and reason. 


N.B. Each club leader fills out one of these blanks and returns it to the director 
at the end of each club period accompanied by the following blank: 


LEADER’S PROPOSED PROGRAM FOR NEXT CLUB MEETING 
Name of Club Leader Date of Next Meeting 


1.—What special need in your group are you aiming to meet at 
your next club meeting? 


2.—How will you meet this need? (State briefly but in detail 
your program.) 
Specify source and names of games or other materials used. 
(a) Citizenship 
(b) Cultural 
(c) Social 
[422 J 


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[ 101 ] 


A MINIMUM STANDARD FOR A NEIGHBORHOOD 
HOUSE 


A Minimum Standard for a Neighborhood House operating 
on an Annual Budget of $10,000-$20,000 is printed here. These 
suggestions are essential for every house. No doubt additions 
will be required to complete the work of each Center. Staff, 
Equipment and Budget requirements may have to be amplified 
considerably in many communities. However, this standard may 
serve as a concise outline of the organization and program of a 
typical Neighborhood House. 


MINIMUM STANDARD FOR A NEIGHBORHOOD 
HOUSE OPERATING ON AN ANNUAL BUDGET 
OF $10,000 to $20,000 


Admumstration: 

1. Board of Directors—Representation from community at large, 
Neighborhood House constituency, affiliated churches, Presby- 
terian organizations, social workers in the community. 

Meetings—Monthly at Neighborhood House. 
Duties—Directing general policies in cooperation with staff, rais- 
ing budget, approving staff appointments. 

2. Director immediately responsible to Board of Directors. 


3. Definite assignment of responsibility for various parts of program 
to staff under general supervision of director. 


4. Staff Meetings—Weekly with constructive program for group 
thinking on Neighborhood House problems. 


5. House Council. 


Staff: 
1. Director (full time)—-General administration of program, imme- 


diate direction of either boys’ or girls’ work, development of 
community contacts. 

2. Second worker (full time)—Immediately responsible for boys’ or 
girls’ work (whichever director does not carry). 


[ 102 ] 


3. Secretary and club worker (she may be part time worker in small 


house). 


4, Group of volunteer workers—plan for recruiting same, plan for 


careful supervision of same. 


Equipment: 


iv 


Zs 
2% 


Lot ample to permit light 
and ventilation 
Playground* 

Building in sound condition 
structurally and good re- 
pair 


. Building should include: 


Entrance lobby 
Drinking fountain 
Outer office controlling en- 
trance and stairways 
Reading or quiet room 
Boys’ Club Room 
Girls’ Club Room 
Auditorium or Gymnasium 
size 40’x60’x18’ equipped 
with: 
a. Stage 
b. Motion picture cur- 
tain 
c. Dressing room 


Records and Reports: 
Enrollment and attendance of all group activities.** 
Monthly summary of programs of all activities.** 


i 
Zs 
3: 


4. 
ef 
6. 


7. 
8. 


d. Motion picture ma- 
chine 


e. Storage space for 
chairs 


Shower room—each shower 
for women privately en- 
closed 


Public toilet for men 
Public toilet for women 


Adequate living quarters for 
resident staff 


Adequate heating equip- 
ment 

Ample storage and locker 
space 

Kitchen adequate for serv- 
ing simple meal for 100 


Sunday school facilities for 
four departments to meet 
separately 


Card index of all individuals connected with Neighborhood 
House.** 

Card index of all families connected with Neighborhood House.** 
Annual and monthly house reports.** 


Annual and quarterly financial statement, the annual statement 
audited by an expert accountant.** 


Printed annual report for distribution in larger community.** 
Historical scrap book of publicity, printed programs, etc. 


**Filed in Neighborhood House Office. 


[ 103 ] 


Activities: 


Week-day 


l. 


2. 
tM 


19, 


Week-day school of reli- 
gion* 
Kindergarten* 


Group activity for Pri- 
mary Children (this may 
be story hour, industrial 
arts, dramatization or play 
school ) 


. Club opportunity for Ju- 


nior Boys* 


. Club opportunity for Ju- 


nior Girls* 


. Club opportunity for In- 


termediate Girls* 


. Club opportunity for In- 


termediate Boys* 


. Club opportunity for Se- 


nior Girls* 


. Club opportunity for Se- 


nior Boys* 


. Men’s Club* 

. Women’s Club* 

. Dramatic Class* 

. Industrial Arts* 

. Household Arts* 

. Physical Education 


Classes** 


. Art Classes* 
. Music School* 
. Citizenship Class for 


Men* 


Citizenship Class for 
Women* 


__ 20. Foreign Language School* 


21. Well developed recreation- 
al program* 

22. Health program, including 
health education* 


Summer 


1. Daily Vacation Bible School 


2. Summer Camp or Summer 


Home for children and 
adults. 

Sunday 

1. Church 


2. Young People’s Service* or 
discussion group 


3. Sunday school: 
a. Four departments 
b. Teacher Training Class 


c. Collections used for 
Missions, etc. 
d. School supported from 
_ general budget of Neigh- 
borhood House 
e. Graded lessons by depart- 
ments 


f. Superintendent for each 
department 


g. Pianist for each depart- 
ment 


h. Adequate teaching staff 


1. Week day session for 
each class or department 


*If not adequately provided elsewhere in community. 


[ 104 ] 


Curriculum: 


. Week day program correlated with Sunday program where possible, 
. Week day program augmenting Public School program. ; 
- Unified program for all Neighborhood House Boys’ and Girls? 


Clubs.** 


- Unified program for all Neighborhood House Boys’ and Girls’ 


Classes, ** 


- A curriculum which interprets America to the immigrant and 


vice versa. 


Budget: 


Pr 
2 


House operating on an annual budget.** 

Definite plan to secure annually increasing support from: 
a. Neighborhood House constituency 

b. Larger community. 


. Annual budget to provide under categories: Salaries, Administra- 


tion, Activities, Camp, Maintenance of Building, Permanent Equip- 
ment, Residence for Staff. 


- Residence self supporting, financed separately from Neighborhood 


House budget. 


- House membership fees scaled according to age for all individuals 


attending activities. 


Community Cooperation: 


kW NO — 


- Representation at local and national social work conferences. 
. Representation at local and national religious education conferences. 
. Membership in local federation of settlements, 


- Membership in local, social, educational and religious groups per- 


taining to Neighborhood House work, 


. Registration of all families at Social Service Exchange. 


. Representation on district case work committee of family social 


work agency. 


**Filed in Neighborhood House Office. 


[ 105 ] 









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[ 108 ] 


A Direcrory oF 
NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSES 


Conducted Under the Auspices 
of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. A. 


BUFFALO, NEW YORK 


WELCOME Hatt SociaL SETTLEMENT 


404 Seneca Street, Buffalo, N. Y. 

Rev. William E, McLennan, Director (Address as above) 

Mr. William H. Gratwick, Chairman 

814 Chamber of Commerce Building, Buffalo 

Auspices: First Presbyterian Church, Buffalo. 

Work was begun November 1894. Cost of building about $65,000. 
4 full-time paid workers, 26 part-time workers, 16 volun- 
teers. Workers in residence, 4 paid and 2 volunteer. Annual 


Budget, $15,000. 


WESTMINSTER HouskE 


424 Adams Street and 421 Monroe Street, Buffalo, N. Y. 

Mrs. Ida Lyman Grumiaux, Director (Address as above) 

Mr. Ulysses L. Candell, Chairman 

642 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo 

Auspices: Westminster Presbyterian Church. 

Work was begun in 1894. Cost of building, $50,000. 2 full-time 
and 8 part-time paid workers; 80 volunteers. Workers in resi- 
dence, 3 full-time, 2 part-time paid workers and five volunteers. 


Annual budget, $19,603. 


BUTTE, MONTANA 


East SipE NEIGHBORHOOD HousE 


732 East Galena Street, Butte, Montana 
Rev. Chester I. Meeker, Director (Address as above) 
Auspices: Department of City, Immigrant, and Industrial Work, 
Board of National Missions. 
Work was begun in 1920. Value of two renovated buildings, 
$15,000. 2 paid workers; 2 volunteer. Workers in residence, 
2 paid and 1 volunteer. Annual budget, $6,500. 


[ 109 ] 


CASPIAN, MICHIGAN 


CAsPIAN COMMUNITY CENTER 


Caspian, Iron County, Michigan 

Mr. Walter M. Berry, Director (address as above) 

Auspices: Synod of Michigan with the cooperation of the Women’s 

Synodical Society. 

Work was begun in 1916. Entered present building October 27th, 
1921. Cost of building $18,141. 2 paid workers, 18 volunteer 
(adult leaders). Workers in residence, 2 paid. Annual budget, 
$6,050. Plans of this model little building for a small com- 
munity may be had from the Department of City, Immigrant, 
and Industrial Work, Board of National Missions. 


CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 


O.LIvET INSTITUTE 
444 Blackhawk Street, Chicago, III. 


Rev. Norman B. Barr, Director (address as above) 

Rev. Andrew C. Zenos, D. D., Chairman 

834 Chalmers Place, Chicago 

Auspices: Independent incorporation but associated with the Pres- 

bytery of Chicago and its Church Extension Board. 

Work was begun in 1888. New building in process of erection to 
cost $500,000. ‘Two old church buildings and fourteen two and 
three story flat buildings now occupied. 20 full-time and 25 
part-time paid workers. 350 volunteers, including all elected 
officers. Workers in residence, 20 paid and 3 volunteer. An- 
nual Budget, approximately, $75,000. 


HoweE.Lit NEIGHBORHOOD HousE 


1831 South Racine Avenue, Chicago, III. 

Miss Gertrude Ray, Director (Address as above) 

Mr. W. Herbert Avery, Chairman 

4904 Blackstone Avenue, Chicago, IIl. 

Auspices: ‘The Church Extension Board of the Presbytery of 

Chicago and the Women’s Presbyterial Society. 

Work was begun with a Kindergarten in 1905. Residence opened 
in 1910. ‘The present building, erected at a cost of $40,000, 
was entered 1913. 11 paid workers, 5 volunteers. Workers in 
residence, 9 paid and 5 volunteer. Annual Budget, $18,300. 


F210") 


CHRISTOPHER House SETTLEMENT 


2507 Greenview Avenue, Chicago, III. 

Miss Ora B. Edmonds, Head Resident (Address as above) 

Mr. Selden F. White, Chairman 

209 S. La Salle St., Chicago 

Auspices: ‘The first Church of Evanston. 

Work was begun about 1905. In present building 1918. Cost of 
Building $75,000. 14 paid workers; volunteer 30. Workers 
in residence, 13 paid and 1 volunteer. Annual Budget, $21,500. 


GARIBALDI INSTITUTE 


1208 West Taylor Street, Chicago, III. 

Rev. Edwin Eells, Director (Address as above) 

E. A. Stedman, Chairman 

15 North Wabash Ave., Chicago, II. 

Auspices: "The Church Extension Board of the Presbytery of 

Chicago. 

Work was begun in March, 1920. Cost of building approximately 
$10,800. Paid workers, 5 full-time and 6 part-time; volunteer 
19. Workers in residence, 1 paid and 5 volunteer. Annual 


Budget, $12,000. 


JEFFERSON ParK CHURCH AND INSTITUTE 


1246 West Adams Street, Chicago, Ill. 

Rev. Wm. J. Du Bourdieu, Director 

Mr. Geo. R. Hemingway, Chairman 

Auspices: Church Extension Board of Chicago Presbytery. 

Work was begun 1912. Value of building $60,000. 5 paid staff 
workers, 15 volunteer staff workers, 2 paid resident workers, 8 
volunteer resident workers. Annual budget, $13,000. 


Larrp Community HouskE 


1838 West Division Street, Chicago, Ill. 

Miss Aileen B. Jones, Director (Address as above) 

Mr. Frederick A. Watkins, Chairman 

565 West Washington St., Chicago, III. 

Auspices: The Church Extension Board of the Presbytery of 

Chicago. 

Work was begun in September, 1923. Cost of Building $15,000. 

3 paid workers; 2 volunteer. Workers in residence, 3 paid. 


Annual Budget, $6,000. 
Mee dbin) 


SAMARITAN Hous 

2601 West Superior Street, Chicago, III. 

Laura A. Bergen, Deaconess (Address as above) 

Mr. George Falconer, Chairman 

1910 Sunnyside Avenue, Chicago 

Auspices: Church Extension Board Presbytery of Chicago. 

Work was begun about 16 years ago. 3 full-time paid workers; 3 
part-time paid workers; one volunteer. Workers in residence, 
two full-time paid workers. Annual Budget, $7,066. 


Cuicaco Heicuts CoMMuNITY CENTER 
220 East 15th Street, Chicago Heights, Chicago, III. 
Miss Mary Barry, Director (Address as above) 
Work was begun in 1910. Cost of Building $20,000. 2 full-time 
paid workers; 4 part-time paid workers; 15 volunteers. Workers 
in residence, | full-time paid worker; 3 part-time paid workers. 


Annual Budget, $9,000. 


CLEVELAND, OHIO 


WoopLanp CENTER SETTLEMENT 

East 46th Street and Woodland Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 

Mr. W. I. Newstetter, Director (Address as above) 

Rev. Joel B. Hayden, Chairman 

13047 Cedar Road, Cleveland 

Auspices: ‘The Presbytery of Cleveland. 

Work was begun February, 1921, as a settlement with residence 
feature. A large reconstructed church building, with two gym- 
nasiums, is used jointly with the Woodland Ave. Presbyterian 
Church. 5 full-time and 43 part-time paid workers. 77 volun- 
teers. Workers in residence, 4 paid, 1 volunteer. Annual 


budget, $18,635. 


CLINTON, INDIANA 


Hitt Crest COMMUNITY CENTER 
505 North 8th Street, Clinton, Indiana 
Rev. L. O. Brown, Supt. (Address as above) 
Rev. B. W. Tyler, Chairman 
665 Poplar Street, Terre Haute, Indiana 
Auspices: ‘The Synod of Indiana. 
Work was begun in 1911. Cost of building, $32,000. 4 paid work- 
ers; volunteer, 14. Workers in residence 2 paid and 1 volunteer. 


Annual Budget, $5,655. 
Pek] 


DETROIT, MICHIGAN 
DELRAY PresBYTERIAN InsTITUTE AND NEIGHBORHOOD House 

800 South Cotterell Street, Detroit, Michigan 

Miss Helen W. Crawley, Director (Address as above) 

Rev. Minot C. Morgan, Chairman 

677 Parker Street, Detroit 

Auspices: Board of Church Extension of the Presbytery of Detroit. 

Work was begun January, 1922. Cost of Building, $50,000. 2 
paid workers; 7 volunteer. Workers in residence, 2 paid. An- 
nual Budget, $7,100. 

Dopce Community HovusE 

6215 Farr Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 

Rev. Ralph Cummins, Director (Address as above) 

Rev. Joseph A. Vance, D.D., Chairman 

39 Edmund Place, Detroit 

Auspices: Governing Committee composed largely of representa- 

tives from First Presbyterian Church, Detroit. 

Work was begun in 1922. Initial investment, $40,000. (Includes 
two temporary buildings and lots.) 4 full-time paid workers; 8 
part-time paid workers; 12 volunteer. Workers in residence, 3 


paid. Annual Budget, $16,000. 


DUPONT, PENNSYLVANIA 


Dupont NEIGHBORHOOD HovusE 

201 Simpson Street, Dupont, Pa. 

Mr. Harold C. Gammon, Director (Address as above) 

Miss Elizabeth Loveland, Acting Chairman 

134 Maple Avenue, Kingston, Pa. 

Auspices: Women’s Missionary Society of Lackawanna Presbytery. 

Work was begun August Ist, 1922. Building is leased. 1 paid 
worker; 7 volunteer. Workers in residence, 1 paid and | volun- 


teer. Annual Budget, $4,800. 


EAST YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO 
East YOUNGSTOWN NEIGHBORHOOD HousE 
East Youngstown, Ohio 
Rev. Henry White, Chairman 
836 Pennsylvania Avenue, Youngstown, Ohio 
Auspices: Joint Committee, representing the Presbytery of Mahon- 
ing, Synod of Ohio, affiliated Women’s Societies, and 
the Board of National Missions. 
Work established as a Neighborhood House, March Ist, 1925. First 
unit of new building project to cost about $40,000. 3 paid 
workers. Workers in residence, 2 paid. Annual budget, $7,500. 


PuLaa ] 


a a 


ERIE, PENNSYLVANIA 


NEIGHBORHOOD HousE 


103 German Street, Erie, Penna. 

Mrs. Virginia Hunt, Director (Address as above) 

Mrs. James Blaine Turner, Chairman 

347 West 21st Street, Erie, Penna. 

Auspices: Erie Presbyterial and Local Board. 

Work was begun in 1907 in small kindergarten. Cost of present 
building $20,000. 4 paid workers; 5 volunteer. Workers in 
residence, 1 paid. Annual Budget, approximately, $4,200. 


GARY, INDIANA 


Gary NEIGHBORHOOD HousE 


1700 Adams Street, Gary, Indiana 
Rev. Harold R. Martin, Director (Address as above) 
Rev. B. W. Tyler, D. D., Chairman 
Terre Haute, Indiana 
Auspices: The Synod of Indiana, with the cooperation of the 
Women’s Synodical Society and the Board of National 
Missions. 
Work was begun in April, 1909. Cost of building and property 
$50,000. 11 paid workers; 3 volunteers. Workers in resi- 
dence, 5 paid and 3 volunteer. Annual Budget, $15,000. 


LACKAWANNA, NEW YORK 


Tue LAcKAWANNA FRIENDSHIP HousE 


527 Ridge Road, Lackawanna, New York 

Rev. Harry W. Richmond, Director (Address as above) 

Rev. Wm. H. Leach, Chairman 

2065 Bailey Avenue, Buffalo, New York 

Auspices: The Presbytery of Buffalo. 

Work was begun October, 1921. Cost of building $49,000. 3 
paid workers; 11 volunteer. Workers in residence, 1 paid. An- 


nual Budget, $9,224. | 
f 114 ] 


MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN 


Catvary Community House 

62 Eighth Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 

Miss Laura E. Dixon, Director (Address as above) 

Mr. F. W. Ells, Chairman 

889 Summit Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 

Auspices: Board of Management, largely drawn from Calvary 
Presbyterian Church which originated the project. Sup- 
port comes from the Presbytery of Milwaukee, the Board 
of National Missions, from Calvary Church and other 
local sources. 

Work was begun in May, 1918. Rented quarters. New building 

will provide residence for workers. 2 paid workers. Annual 


Budget, $3,853. 


NEW YORK CITY 


Curist CHurcH HousE 

336-344 West 36th Street, New York 

N. C. Roy, Director, (Address as above) 

Oliver C. Reynolds, Chairman 

68 William St., 

Auspices: Brick Presbyterian Church. 

Work was begun in 1857. Cost of building, $400,000. 19 paid 
staff workers, 1 paid residence worker, 18 volunteer workers. 


Annual budget, $31,500. 


Sprinc StrEET NeIiGHBorHOooD House 
244 Spring Street, New York 
Rev. Raymond P. Sanford, Chairman (Address as above ) 
Auspices: Part of Spring Street Social Settlement, Inc., which in- 
cludes Varick House. 
Work was begun in 1906. Cost of building, $250,000. 6 paid 
workers, 18 volunteer. Workers in residence, 3 paid; 8 volun- 


teer. Annual Budget, $13,000. 


NEIGHBORHOOD Houser oF THE AMERICAN ParIsH 
324 Pleasant Avenue, New York 
Rey. J. Canfield Van Doren, Director 
Auspices:; The Church Extension Committee of the Presbytery of 
New York. 
Work was begun in 1911. Cost of building, $25,000. 12 paid 
workers, volunteer, 4. Workers in residence, 7 paid. Annual 


Budget, $10,985. 
Oy 


Lasor TEMPLE 

239 East 14th Street, New York 

Rev. Edmund B. Chaffee, Director 

Rev. Thomas Guthrie Speers, Chairman of the Labor Temple Com- 
mittee, 47 University Place, N. Y. 

Auspices: The Church Extension Committee of the Presbytery of 

New York. 

Work was begun in 1910. New building now in process of erection 
to cost $700,000. 9 paid workers, 4 part-time fellowship stud- 
ent workers. Workers in residence, 6, 2 paid and 4 students. 
Annual Budget, $35,050. 

CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH NEIGHBORHOOD HouseE 

422 West 57th Street, New York 

Miss Florence E. Clendenning, Director (Address as above) 

Mrs. George Crary, Chairman 

770 Park Avenue, New York 

Auspices; Benevolent Society of the Central Presbyterian Church. 

Work was begun 1911. Cost of Building $35,000. 6 paid work- 
ers, 6 volunteers. Workers in residence, 2 paid and 4 volunteer. 


Annual Budget, $17,000. 


PORTLAND, OREGON 
Mewn’s Resort 
4th & Burnside, Portland, Oregon 
Rev. Levi Johnson, Director (Address as above) 
Mr. J. E. Wheeler, Chairman 
The Telegram, Portland, Oregon 
Auspices: The First Presbyterian Church. 
Work was begun in 1895. Cost of building, $20,000. 3 paid 
workers and many volunteers. Workers in residence, 2 paid. 


Annual Budget, $5,000. 


SUMMIT, NEW JERSEY 


NEIGHBORHOOD HousE 

511 Morris Avenue, Summit, New Jersey 

Miss Alice J. Cassidy, Director (Address as above) 

Rev. R. C. Brank, Chairman 

52 Maple Street, Summit, N. J. 

Auspices: Central Presbyterian Church, Summit, N. J. 

Work was begun November, 1901. Cost of building, Circ. $18,000. 
3 paid workers, 30 volunteers. Workers in residence 3 paid, 1 


volunteer. Annual Budget, $6,000. 
[Lor 


SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 


Porrero Hitt NeicHBoruoop House 

953 De Haro Street, San Francisco, California 

Mr. W. J. Tanghe, Supt. (Address as above) 

Miss Julia Fraser, Chairman 

2014 5th Avenue, Oakland, Calif. 

Auspices: A cooperative work on the part of ‘The American Baptist 
Home Mission Society, the Board of National Missions 
of the Presbyterian Church and the Women’s Synodical 
Society. 

Work begun 1908. Cooperation as above dates from June, 1922. 

Cost of building, including lots, $31,871. 3 paid workers full- 
time, 4 part-time, 11 volunteers. Workers in residence, 1 paid and 


1 volunteer. Annual Budget, $9,600. 


a 


SUPPLEMENTARY LIST 


The following important projects generally qualify for this 
listing of Neighborhood Houses, excepting that the workers are 
not resident. 


ee 


BUFFALO, NEW YORK 


MemoriaL CHAPEL SociaL CENTER 

155 Cedar Street, Buffalo, New York 

Miss Irene J. Graham, Director (Address as above ) 

Rev. Murray Shipley Howland, Chairman 

Auspices: Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church and the Synod of 

New York. 

Work was begun as Sunday School in 1857; as a social center, 1912. 
Cost of building $60,000. 7 paid workers and 6 music teachers. 
45 volunteers. Annual Budget $10,000. 


=e 


CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 


PenieEL ComMMUNITY CENTER 
1245 North Washtenaw Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 
Rev. David Bronstein, Director (Address as above) 
Mr. Carl E. Roth, Chairman 
4610 Ravenswood Avenue, Chicago 
Auspices: Church Extension Board, Presbytery of Chicago. 
Work was begun in 1921. Cost of building, $25,000. 3 paid 
workers, 8 volunteer. No resident workers. Annual Budget, 


$8,000. 
Pah bys} 


BALTIMORE, MARYLAND 


EMMANUEL NEIGHBORHOOD HovusE 

1523 East Lombard Street, Baltimore, Maryland 

Rev. Aaron J. Kligerman, Director (Address as above) 

Rev. John A. Nesbitt, Chairman 

Catonsville, Maryland 

Auspices: Board of National Missions, Sub-Department of Jewish 
Evangelization and the Executive Committee of Home 

Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. 

Work was begun in 1920. Building rented at $1,000 annually. 4 

paid workers, 9 volunteer. Annual Budget, $10,500. 


NEWARK, NEW JERSEY 


BETHANY COMMUNITY CENTER 
38 College Place and 155 Court Street, Newark, New Jersey 
Rev. E. S. Greenbaum, Director (Address as above) 
Dr. Alexander Cairns, Chairman 
746 Ridge Street, Newark, New Jersey 
Auspices: Board of National Missions, Sub-Department of Jewish 
Evangelization. 
Work was begun in May, 1919. Cost of building, $65,000. 6 
paid workers, 12 volunteer. Annual Budget, $12,500. 


eh ee | 


HOMES OF NEIGHBORLY SERVICE 


In Mexican Communities in the Southwest 
With the cooperation of the Board of National Missions of the 
Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
Dr. Robert N. McLean, Associate Director, 
406 Columbia Bldg., Los Angeles, Cal. 


BELVEDERE PARK SETTLEMENT 
4360 Missouri Avenue, Belvedere, Cal. 
Miss Ethel McCormick, Director 


San Antonio HoME oF NEIGHBORLY SERVICE 
1515 Lakeview Avenue, San Antonio, Texas 
Miss Bessie Sneed, Director 


Home or NEIGHBORLY SERVICE 
Azusa, Cal. 
(Vacant temporarily) 


Home or NEIGHBORLY SERVICE 
North 9th Avenue and Brighton Street, Brighton, Colorado 


Miss Patricia Salazar, Head-worker 


Home or NEIGHBORLY SERVICE 
422 Duarte Street, Monrovia, Cal. 
Miss Ella G. Sharpe, Head-worker 


Home or NEIGHBORLY SERVICE 
227 North High Avenue, Redlands, Cal. 


Miss Roxana Jackson, Head-worker 


Home or NEIGHBORLY SERVICE 
558 North Mt. Vernon Avenue, San Bernardino, Cal. 


Miss Irma Laidlaw, Headworker. 


[ 119 ] 


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